Technology roadmap: energy efficient building envelopes
Buildings use more energy than any other sector and therefore are a prime focus of efforts to save energy. A new IEA publication shows how improvements to the building envelope – the parts of a building that form the primary thermal barrier between interior and exterior – can cut the sector’s total consumption by almost 20%. Technology Roadmap: Energy Efficient Building Envelopes analyses emerging technologies that improve the envelope – which includes walls, windows, doors, the roof and floors – like high-performance “thin” insulation, triple-glazed low-e windows, dynamic solar control and better air sealing. Detailing the investment, policies, regulations and actions necessary to advance and popularise these technologies in new and existing structures, the new publication lays out a strategy for transforming how buildings are constructed or renovated. And it proposes long-term solutions to limit growth in the sector’s energy use, which currently includes more than half of global electricity, despite global population growth of 2.5 billion people by 2050.