IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i2p1412-d1032698.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Integration of Energy Simulations and Life Cycle Assessment in Building Refurbishment: An Affordability Comparison of Thermal Insulation Materials through a New Sustainability Index

Author

Listed:
  • Flavio Scrucca

    (SSPT Department, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Via Anguillarese 301, Santa Maria di Galeria, 00123 Rome, Italy)

  • Domenico Palladino

    (DUEE Department, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Via Anguillarese 301, Santa Maria di Galeria, 00123 Rome, Italy)

Abstract

Energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction have become two of the most important issues to address in fighting climate change. Focused strategies have been implemented aiming at reducing the energy consumption of buildings since it is one of the most energy-intensive sectors, but they are mainly concerned with energy reduction without considering their environmental impact. The present work therefore aims at assessing the energy and environmental impacts of the use of insulation materials for building envelope refurbishment as the thermal coating. Reference buildings were used to perform energy simulations in representative cities of Italy and energy and environmental impacts of the most common and sustainable insulation materials were thus evaluated. Relevant outcomes have been focused on defining a new Economic and Environmental Sustainability Index (EESI) capable of considering both economic and environmental aspects; particularly, sustainable materials (such as cellulose fiber) can have the same affordability as traditional ones (such as polystyrene foam slab, glass wool, or stone wool) if environmental impact is also taken into account, despite their higher cost. However, according to EESI, the affordability of traditional insulation materials remains evident in the warmest climatic zones because of the lower energy needs of buildings.

Suggested Citation

  • Flavio Scrucca & Domenico Palladino, 2023. "Integration of Energy Simulations and Life Cycle Assessment in Building Refurbishment: An Affordability Comparison of Thermal Insulation Materials through a New Sustainability Index," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-22, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:2:p:1412-:d:1032698
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1412/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1412/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jenkins, David & Simpson, Sophie & Peacock, Andrew, 2017. "Investigating the consistency and quality of EPC ratings and assessments," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 480-489.
    2. Villasmil, Willy & Fischer, Ludger J. & Worlitschek, Jörg, 2019. "A review and evaluation of thermal insulation materials and methods for thermal energy storage systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 71-84.
    3. Hardy, A. & Glew, D., 2019. "An analysis of errors in the Energy Performance certificate database," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 1168-1178.
    4. Małgorzata Basińska & Dobrosława Kaczorek & Halina Koczyk, 2021. "Economic and Energy Analysis of Building Retrofitting Using Internal Insulations," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-18, April.
    5. Andrea Aquino & Flavio Scrucca & Emanuele Bonamente, 2021. "Sustainability of Shallow Geothermal Energy for Building Air-Conditioning," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-30, October.
    6. Domenico Palladino & Flavio Scrucca & Nicolandrea Calabrese & Grazia Barberio & Carlo Ingrao, 2021. "Durum-Wheat Straw Bales for Thermal Insulation of Buildings: Findings from a Comparative Energy Analysis of a Set of Wall-Composition Samples on the Building Scale," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-19, September.
    7. Bektas Ekici, Betul & Aytac Gulten, Ayca & Aksoy, U. Teoman, 2012. "A study on the optimum insulation thicknesses of various types of external walls with respect to different materials, fuels and climate zones in Turkey," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 211-217.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Raniero Sannino, 2023. "Thermal Loads Map and Overall Energy Analysis Depending on Low-Effort Parameters Change: A Commercial Building Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-18, April.
    2. Domenico Palladino & Silvia Di Turi, 2023. "Energy and Economic Savings Assessment of Energy Refurbishment Actions in Italian Residential Buildings: Comparison between Asset and Tailored Calculation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-22, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jenny Crawley & Phillip Biddulph & Paul J. Northrop & Jez Wingfield & Tadj Oreszczyn & Cliff Elwell, 2019. "Quantifying the Measurement Error on England and Wales EPC Ratings," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-19, September.
    2. Hettinga, Sanne & van ’t Veer, Rein & Boter, Jaap, 2023. "Large scale energy labelling with models: The EU TABULA model versus machine learning with open data," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    3. Shiva Amirkhani & Ali Bahadori-Jahromi & Anastasia Mylona & Paulina Godfrey & Darren Cook & Hooman Tahayori & Hexin Zhang, 2021. "Uncertainties in Non-Domestic Energy Performance Certificate Generating in the UK," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-19, July.
    4. Ahlrichs, Jakob & Wenninger, Simon & Wiethe, Christian & Häckel, Björn, 2022. "Impact of socio-economic factors on local energetic retrofitting needs - A data analytics approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    5. Li, Y. & Kubicki, S. & Guerriero, A. & Rezgui, Y., 2019. "Review of building energy performance certification schemes towards future improvement," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1-1.
    6. Palladino, Domenico, 2023. "Energy performance gap of the Italian residential building stock: Parametric energy simulations for theoretical deviation assessment from standard conditions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 345(C).
    7. Camboni, Riccardo & Corsini, Alberto & Miniaci, Raffaele & Valbonesi, Paola, 2021. "Mapping fuel poverty risk at the municipal level. A small-scale analysis of Italian Energy Performance Certificate, census and survey data," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    8. Luis M. López-Ochoa & Jesús Las-Heras-Casas & Luis M. López-González & César García-Lozano, 2020. "Energy Renovation of Residential Buildings in Cold Mediterranean Zones Using Optimized Thermal Envelope Insulation Thicknesses: The Case of Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-34, March.
    9. Behzadi, Amirmohammad & Holmberg, Sture & Duwig, Christophe & Haghighat, Fariborz & Ooka, Ryozo & Sadrizadeh, Sasan, 2022. "Smart design and control of thermal energy storage in low-temperature heating and high-temperature cooling systems: A comprehensive review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    10. Ferentinos, Konstantinos & Gibberd, Alex & Guin, Benjamin, 2023. "Stranded houses? The price effect of a minimum energy efficiency standard," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    11. Karni Siraganyan & Amarasinghage Tharindu Dasun Perera & Jean-Louis Scartezzini & Dasaraden Mauree, 2019. "Eco-Sim: A Parametric Tool to Evaluate the Environmental and Economic Feasibility of Decentralized Energy Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-22, February.
    12. Manuela Neri & Mariagrazia Pilotelli & Marco Traversi & Elisa Levi & Edoardo Alessio Piana & Mariasole Bannó & Eva Cuerva & Pablo Pujadas & Alfredo Guardo, 2021. "Conversion of End-of-Life Household Materials into Building Insulating Low-Cost Solutions for the Development of Vulnerable Contexts: Review and Outlook towards a Circular and Sustainable Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-21, April.
    13. Walsh, Angélica & Cóstola, Daniel & Labaki, Lucila Chebel, 2018. "Performance-based validation of climatic zoning for building energy efficiency applications," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 416-427.
    14. Ákos Lakatos, 2022. "Novel Thermal Insulation Materials for Buildings," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-4, September.
    15. David Vérez & Emiliano Borri & Alicia Crespo & Gabriel Zsembinszki & Belal Dawoud & Luisa F. Cabeza, 2021. "Experimental Study of a Small-Size Vacuum Insulated Water Tank for Building Applications," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-11, May.
    16. Wenninger, Simon & Kaymakci, Can & Wiethe, Christian, 2022. "Explainable long-term building energy consumption prediction using QLattice," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    17. Lesley Thomson & David Jenkins, 2023. "The Use of Real Energy Consumption Data in Characterising Residential Energy Demand with an Inventory of UK Datasets," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-29, August.
    18. Wiethe, Christian & Wenninger, Simon, 2023. "The influence of building energy performance prediction accuracy on retrofit rates," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    19. Fateh Mebarek-Oudina & Ines Chabani, 2023. "Review on Nano Enhanced PCMs: Insight on nePCM Application in Thermal Management/Storage Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-21, January.
    20. Semple, Sally & Jenkins, David, 2020. "Variation of energy performance certificate assessments in the European Union," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:2:p:1412-:d:1032698. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.