Assessment of the economic performance of vacuum insulation panels for housing projects

• Exploring thermal performance of conventional and vacuum insulation panels (VIPs).
• Conducting life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) for the panels as well.
• Comparing economic benefit by LCCA wherein the panels were installed to the house.
• Analyzing LCC items including installation costs and operation costs for 40 years.
• VIP 30T and VIP 20T can provide 136.923% and 88.28% more economic benefit compared to conventional panel, respectively.

One of the key concerns for achieving a passive house is highly efficient thermal insulating materials. With this in mind, the vacuum insulation panel (VIP) was developed recently to improve the heat transmission efficiency. On the other hand, project owners or managers are often reluctant to apply VIPs to their particular housing projects because of the relatively high installation costs compared to conventional panels. Therefore, this paper evaluated the economic performance of VIPs by life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) including the energy costs during the operation phase of the house adopting the VIPs. The results showed that economic benefits can be earned from the installation of VIPs in terms of energy consumption during the operational phase of the house. LCCA for a 40 year period showed that VIP 30T and VIP 20T could provide as much as 136.923% and 88.28% more economic benefit than conventional insulation panels, respectively. These results show that the project owner or manager can choose VIPs as a thermal material for their housing projects even after considering the high installation costs.