Author(s): Jafri, S. A. H., & Bharti, P. K.
Acceptance of a new technology driven product generally has an issue of cost. The same issue is with vacuum insulation panel (VIP) as thermal insulation for building envelope. For acceptance of VIP while keeping its advantage of occupancy of minimum space a life cycle cost analysis is presented here with the objective to determine minimum thickness of thermal insulation for a given climatic condition on wall of building that leads to maximum savings and minimum payback period for a given period. With the said objective this paper reports results of life cycle cost analysis of building wall insulation thickness for two places in cold climatic zone of India i.e., Srinagar and Pahalgam for 40 years period. Burned brick wall common in Indian scenario is considered in the present analysis. Since the cost of VIP is high so to reduce the cost of thermal insulation another thermal insulation material, polyurethane foam (PUF) in combination with VIP is also analyzed. For the climatic condition of Srinagar in heating application it is found that for the same optimum insulation thickness of 0.005 m, combination of VIP with PUF have up to 10.35% lesser payback period with 0.453% more life cycle cost savings as compared to VIP for a life span of 40 years.