Energy Efficiency and Environmental Sustainability of Insulated Roofs for Stand-Alone Convenience Store in Hot-Humid Climate

The increasing number of convenience stores in Thailand impacts both national energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission levels. The typical convenience store in Thailand consists of polyethylene as insulation material which indicates that the possibility of improvements in these stores is high. This paper presents the energy, economic and environmental analysis of the insulated roof of the stand-alone convenience store. The goal of this study is to analyze the three aspects of insulated roofs with the help of a simple resistance-capacitance model which is validated by the experimental study as well as in-situ measurements. The results show a significant difference in the energy, economic and environmental performance of the roof when two different insulation materials were used (polyethylene and polyurethane). With a longer payback period and lower life cycle cost, the PU roof demonstrated reduced energy consumption and cradle-to-use phase carbon dioxide emissions when compared to the PE roof.