Impact of Changes in the Required Thermal Insulation of Building Envelope on Energy Demand, Heating Costs, Emissions, and Temperature in Buildings

Walery Jezierski, Beata Sadowska and Krzysztof Pawłowski
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Walery Jezierski: Faculty of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences, Bialystok University of Technology, Wiejska Street 45E, 15-351 Bialystok, Poland
Beata Sadowska: Faculty of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences, Bialystok University of Technology, Wiejska Street 45E, 15-351 Bialystok, Poland
Krzysztof Pawłowski: Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Architecture, UTP University of Science and Technology, 7 Kaliskiego Street, 85-796 Bydgoszcz, Poland

Energies, 2020, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-23

Abstract: Various methods can be used to reduce energy consumption in buildings. One of them is the tightening of energy requirements, which, like other methods, cannot result in a worsening of the indoor environmental quality. The article presents a study on the impact of changes in the thermal insulation of the building envelope on the energy demand, heating costs, and emissions. Mathematical models of the dependence of the index of annual usable energy demand for heating ( EU H ) of a residential house on the thermal transmittance coefficients ( U i ) of selected building elements were developed. Values of U i were adopted at three levels, corresponding to the maximum required values—as approved in Polish law for the periods from 2014, 2017, and 2021. The analyses were conducted for the location of the building in three of the five climate zones of Poland. It turned out that the differences in the energy demand in various locations in Poland amount to 32.6%. The change in U i in the analyzed period causes a decrease of EU H by almost 27%. Financial savings and a reduction of emissions strongly depend on the fuel used in the building. Increasing the level of thermal insulation of walls increases the perceptible temperature in rooms by 1.2–1.5%.

Keywords: thermal transmittance coefficient; building envelope; the index of annual usable energy demand for heating; deterministic mathematical model; financial savings; reduction of harmful emissions; perceptible temperature (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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