Potential Benefits of Thermal Insulation in Public Buildings: Case of a University Building

Abstract

Global energy demand continues to rise due to advances in both developed and developing countries. Energy-efficient technologies and eco-friendly policies have been insufficient to counterbalance the increasing demand and, thus, the national strategies of many countries have been shaped by energy conservation considerations. Buildings are responsible for more than one third of the global final energy consumption and the energy use in buildings is expected to grow more than 40% in the next 20 years. Even though the energy-efficient retrofits and thermal insulation of the building envelope have been widely studied in academia, the case of existing public buildings has been largely neglected. To fill the gap, this study investigates the thermal insulation of existing public buildings and unveils its potential benefits. An administrative building of a public university has been the subject of financial analysis to observe the feasibility of insulation applications and to identify the most feasible insulation application. The results reveal that (i) the most feasible application depends considerably on the financial scenarios and (ii) the feasibility of insulation applications is greatly influenced by the building geometry. This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating the feasibility of energy retrofits in an administrative public building and proposing an alternative way to achieve national energy efficiency objectives.