Optimization of a Combination of Thermal Insulation and Cool Roof for the Refurbishment of Social Housing in Southern Spain

Carlos-Antonio Domínguez-Torres, Helena Domínguez-Torres and Antonio Domínguez-Delgado
Additional contact information
Carlos-Antonio Domínguez-Torres: Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Reina Mercedes 2, 41012 Sevilla, Spain
Helena Domínguez-Torres: Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Ramón y Cajal 1, 41018 Sevilla, Spain
Antonio Domínguez-Delgado: Department of Applied Mathematics 1, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Reina Mercedes 2, 41012 Sevilla, Spain

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 19, 1-32

Abstract: Social housing built in the middle of the last century in Spain suffers from poor thermal insulation conditions that cause situations of discomfort and energy poverty. For this reason, the energetic refurbishment of the envelope of this social building stock is necessary to overcome these situations and reduce energy consumption aimed at achieving interior comfort for its occupants. The goal of this work is to optimize a constructive solution that combines cool roof techniques with the use of thermal insulation applied to the refurbishment of the roof of buildings belonging to a quarter of social housing in Seville, Spain. The optimization analysis is based on the computation of the energy performance of the roofs when the energy retrofitting measure is applied, considering a variety of combinations of solar reflective coatings and insulation layer thickness, performing a dynamic analysis that accounts for the aging effect of the cool coats on the monthly roof energy performance and on the economic balance for the whole life cycle (LC) span. Economic and energy optimization analysis show that a suitable combination of cool roof emissivity and insulation layer thickness produces significant savings in the operational energy and in the economic profitability of the proposed retrofitting measure: the optimum combination obtained provides for the entire life cycle timespan an energy savings of 5.71 GJ/m 2 and a cost savings equivalent to the 63.1 % of the total costs when compared to the non-refurbished roof. The application of a time-dependent pattern for the changes on time produced by the aging effect on the cool roof emissivity, and its effects on the optimization of the combination of cool roof and insulation layer, can be considered novel in literature, both from an energy and an economic point of view.

Keywords: optimization; cool roof; thermal insulation; aging effect; social housing; life-cycle cost analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/10738/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/10738/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:19:p:10738-:d:644455

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().