Abstract
Determining the optimal insulation thickness is useful for designing
zero-emission buildings (ZEB) to minimize the environmental impacts. The
energy required to heat buildings in cold climates is relatively high.
Substantial reductions in the total energy usage of a building can be
achieved by reducing the U-value of the external surfaces. Increasing
the insulation thickness reduces the operational CO2 emissions, although simultaneously increases the embodied CO2
emissions from materials. To mitigate climate change, Norway and
Denmark are trending towards stricter regulations to limit energy use in
buildings. However, these countries have no current regulations in the
building codes for limit embodied CO2 emissions from
materials. This study analyzes the influence of the energy emission
factor and future climate change (scenarios?) on the optimal insulation
thickness. We used three independent models for case studies in
Greenland and Norway. The differences between the case studies highlight
the influence of model parameter choices, such as indoor climate,
energy emission factor and material emissions, whereas the similarities
may be used to analyze the problem from a broader perspective. The
results show that optimal insulation thickness calculations are most
valuable for case studies in which the energy emission factor is low.
Considering energy emission factors above 25–30 g CO2eq/kWh, operational emissions dominated the calculation results in all case studies.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 110187 |
Journal | Building and Environment |
Volume | 234 |
Number of pages | 13 |
ISSN | 0360-1323 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2023 |
Keywords
- Building
- Climate change
- Embodied emissions
- Energy emission factor
- Energy use
- Operational emissions