Embodied Energy and Lifecycle Assessment of EPS based Light-weight Panel Apartments in Tropical Uplands: Fid-Bau Portal

Embodied Energy and Lifecycle Assessment of EPS based Light-weight Panel Apartments in Tropical Uplands

Shiveswarran, R. / Athukorala, N. / Jayasinghe, M. T. R.

The buildings demand a great amount of energy in their life cycle right from the extraction of raw materials to demolition stage. Hence, it is prudent to optimizing the energy embodied in the construction materials and needed to operate the building. The waste-based building materials will have very little embodied energy associate with and that is the energy needed for converting from the waste stage to the building material stage. One such material that is considered as a waste material is Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) used as a packaging material. Embodied energy calculations were done according to Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) data base and other relevant literature. The thermal performance of properly planned three-storey apartment building has been assessed using Design Builder software to determine the energy associated with the operational phase to ensure adequate thermal comfort indoors. In Sri Lanka, Tropical uplands have low outdoor temperature distribution when compared to other climatic zones such as wet and dry lowland climates that can be ranked as warm humid. The energy (electricity) required for heating and lighting was obtained from Design Builder energy simulations. The passive techniques to minimize the heating energy demand such as: selecting the desirable orientation of the building, window-to-wall ratio, etc. have been analysed. With the data on embodied energy and the operational energy, a complete life cycle assessment which is a process-based, is carried out according to the ISO 14044:2006 standards using the OneClick LCA tool. A comparative study was undertaken to prove the suitability of EPS lightweight panels for Tropical Upland Climate when compared with the other conventional construction materials such as bricks and concrete blocks. EPS panel apartment contributes about 20% energy savings in Embodied Energy: about 30% energy (electricity) savings in its Operational phase and about 40–50% environmental impact reduction when compared with conventional building materials.