Retrofitting Building Envelope Using Phase Change Materials and Aerogel Render for Adaptation to Extreme Heatwave: A Multi-Objective Analysis Considering Heat Stress, Energy, Environment, and Cost

Abstract

Energy retrofitting the existing building stock is crucial to reduce thermal discomfort, energy consumption, and carbon emissions. However, insulating and enhancing the thermal mass of an existing building wall using traditional methods is a very challenging and expensive task. There is a need to develop a material that can be applied easily in an existing occupied building without much interruption to occupants’ daily life while also having high thermal resistance and heat storage capacity. This study aimed to investigate a potential building wall retrofit strategy combining aerogel render and Phase change materials (PCM) because aerogel render is highly resistive to heat and PCM has high thermal mass. While a number of studies investigated the thermal and energy-saving performances of aerogel render and PCM separately, no study has been done on the thermal and energy-saving performance of the combination of PCM and aerogel render. In this study, the performance of 12 different retrofit strategies, including aerogel and PCM, were evaluated numerically in terms of heat stress, energy savings, peak cooling, emission, and lifecycle cost using a typical single-story Australian house. The results showed that applying aerogel render and PCM on the outer side of the external walls and PCM and insulation in ceilings is the best option considering all performance indicators and ease of application. Compared to the baseline, this strategy reduced severe discomfort hours by 82% in a free-running building. In an air-conditioned building, it also decreased energy use, peak cooling demand, CO2 emission, and operational energy cost by 40%, 65%, 64%, and 35%, respectively. Although the lifecycle cost savings for this strategy were lower than the “insulated ceiling and rendered wall without PCM” case, the former one was considered the best option for its superior energy, emission, and comfort performance. Parametric analysis showed that 0.025 m is the optimum thickness for both PCM and aerogel render, and the 25 °C melting point PCM was optimum to achieve the best results amongst all performance indicators for a typical Australian house in Melbourne climate.