8/12/2019 BASF Abstrak

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Seminar dan Pameran HAKI 2012 - A Review on the Application of Thermal Insulation for 

Existing Building- Life Cycle Analysis, Thermal Comfort and Energy Saving1

A Review on the Application of Thermal Insulation for  Existing Building 

- Life Cycle Analysis, Thermal Comfort and Energy Saving 

BASF

Abstrack

This paper dwells on 2 aspects of thermal insulation for building envelope in terms of life thermalcomfort and energy saving. It is known that installing an appropriate thermal insulation system forbuilding envelope is recognized as one of the easiest and most cost effective ways of reducingenergy demand whilst simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions. There is often amisconception of the role of insulation on cooling for warm climates as insulation is usually used

in cold countries to keep the heat in the buildings. Therefore, insulation to keep the interior warmduring winter is well understood but not its ability in keep interior cool in the summer. In reality,insulating a building is like a thermos keeping the hot drinks warm in the winter and also keepingcold drinks cool in the summer. Insulation to the building envelope has significant impact oncooling even if the building is not optimized for cooling (e.g. lack of shading). Countries in tropicalclimate, which is characterized with elevated temperature, high relative humidity and heavyrainfall will greatly benefit from insulation to the building envelope in terms of thermal comfort andenergy saving. A comparison on the interior temperature and air conditioning energy consumptionshows that insulation lowers the interior temperature by 2-3oC and its air conditioning systemconsumes less energy. Result from a dynamic thermal building simulation on an existing buildingunder tropical climatic condition shows that insulation can save significant amount of energyconsume by air conditioning system.

Insulation materials, especially plastic based like polystyrene and polyurethane are assumed to

have high contribution to carbon emission during their production. In order to truly understand the

total contribution of plastic insulation materials, a life cycle analysis has to be carried out

considering the energy used for its production, energy savings during its lifetime and waste

management in terms of energy demand for recycling, energy recovery and disposal of the

materials. It has been reported that within 4 months of the application of plastic insulation, the

energy saving has balanced the energy used for its production. Within 50 years of application, the

energy saving would have reach 150 times compared to the energy used for production.