Report

Improved energy efficiency in non-residential buildings through high-quality pipe insulation

There are substantial energy savings to be achieved through improved insulation of piping in  non-residential buildings. This is an issue that is scarcely addressed in Dutch legislation, however, and in practice piping insulation in the country’s institutional buildings is generally poor-quality. The building codes of neighbouring countries do include such provisions, and as a result pipe insulation is generally far better.

This report calculates how much energy could be saved in the Netherlands if relevant standards in neighbouring countries were applied. If pipes were insulated to a similar quality as in France, this would lead to savings of around 90 TJp per annum in new buildings alone, representing the CO2 emissions of about 4,000 new-build dwellings with an EPC of 0.4. In the typical case of a hospital, investments will be recouped within less than 5 years, yielding cost savings for the building user. This is one of the main results of a study carried out for by CE Delft for Kingspan Tarec, producers of high-quality pipe insulation.

In the quest for cheap measures for improving the energy efficiency of non-residential buildings in the Netherlands it is therefore recommended that due consideration be given to this measure.

Authors