ABSTRACT Highly insulated building envelopes have become more commonplace as environmental imperatives require reduction of building carbon footprints. Whilst increased insulation levels reduce operational energy demand, the additional embodied energy investment can increase the buildings’ overall environmental impact. The embodied energy consideration can determine whether, and to what extent, additional insulation is justified. The following paper investigates the impact of uncertainties of embodied energy data on the cumulative operational and embodied energy analyses and holistically appraises its implications for different stakeholders involved with the construction sector. Limitations in current life cycle assessment (LCA) calculation methods and high uncertainty of available data are recognized and reflected in the analyses through studying available environmental product declarations of various types of insulation materials and by modelling a typical semi-detached residential building in the UK as the case study. The results of such approach illustrate ‘optimum insulation thicknesses’ beyond which the embodied energy penalty outweighs operational energy savings. These essentially represent idealized levels of building envelope insulation that can inform the development of future standards for low energy/carbon buildings and support the adoption of LCAs as decision-making tools in informing the urgent debate of optimal insulation requirements of buildings.

中文翻译：

---

建筑围护结构优化规范的隐含能源数据影响

摘要 由于环境要求要求减少建筑碳足迹，高度绝缘的建筑围护结构变得越来越普遍。虽然提高绝缘水平会降低运营能源需求，但额外的隐含能源投资会增加建筑物的整体环境影响。隐含能量的考虑可以决定额外的绝缘是否以及在多大程度上是合理的。以下论文调查了隐含能源数据的不确定性对累积运营和隐含能源分析的影响，并全面评估其对建筑行业不同利益相关者的影响。当前生命周期评估 (LCA) 计算方法的局限性和可用数据的高度不确定性通过研究各种类型绝缘材料的可用环境产品声明并通过将英国典型的半独立式住宅建筑建模为案例研究。这种方法的结果说明了“最佳绝缘厚度”，超过该厚度所体现的能源损失超过了运营能源节约。这些本质上代表了理想化的建筑围护结构保温水平，可以为未来低能耗/碳建筑标准的制定提供信息，并支持采用 LCA 作为决策工具，为建筑物最佳保温要求的紧急辩论提供信息。