A Tool for Calculating the Building Insulation Thickness for Lowest CO2 Emissions—A Greenlandic Example

Increased insulation reduces the energy needed during operations, but this may be less than required for extra material. If so, there must an optimal thickness. This paper describes development of a tool to determine thickness, including what parameters are decisive, and presents some results along with discussion success criteria limitations. To make these considerations manageable regular practitioners, only transmission heat loss through walls is calculated. Although universal, Greenland used as example, because its extreme climatic conditions. The includes climate change, 10 locations 8 materials. It focuses on greenhouse gas emissions, considers oil district heating sources, evaluates four different change scenarios expressed in terms degree days. system sensitive materials high CO2 emissions sources emission factors. also case where has highest impact Using basic criterion, emitting minimum CO2-eq, Insulation Thickness Optimizer (ITO), generally identifies higher thicknesses currently seen practice most building regulations.