 |
|
PaintSquare Daily News is available in three editions: Industrial Only Commercial Only Combined Industrial & Commercial Your free subscription also includes: Special topical editions and Weekend Brief—a recap of the week’s top news and some great in-depth reads. Subscribe now: paintsquare.com/psdn |
Berkeley Study Looks at 'Cool Wall' Performance
“Cool walls provide energy cost savings and emission reductions across California and the southern half of the United States,” said Ronnen Levinson, a Berkeley Lab staff scientist and leader of Berkeley Lab’s Heat Island Group who co-authored the study, published in the journal Energy & Buildings.
“In these climates, cool walls can save as much or more energy than the same size cool roof.”
The Study
The report analyzed more than 100,000 building simulations and modeled several different types and ages of homes, retail stores and office buildings in cities across California and the rest of the U.S.
If these walls could talk, they might tell you that a fresh coat of solar-reflective paint could reduce energy costs and pollution. @BerkeleyLabETA #energyefficient https://t.co/GmilKHqsLm
— Berkeley Lab (@BerkeleyLab) July 9, 2019
Levinson explains that, while walls receive less intense sunlight than roofs, they’re also less insulated.
According to Berkeley, about 40% to 60% of all buildings in the U.S. were built before 1980, when building codes generally specified much less wall insulation than today. As a result, cool-wall savings in these older buildings could be three to six times greater than those for new buildings, the study found.
“Repainting the exterior walls of pre-1980 buildings—whether homes or office buildings or stores—with cool paint offers the greatest benefit because they have the least insulation,” Levinson said.
“And that’s not difficult to do. There are many light-colored cool paints in local home supply stores.”
In warm U.S. cities such as Miami, Florida, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, researchers found that cool walls could lead to annual heating, ventilation and air conditioning energy cost savings up to 11% for stand-alone retail stores, 8.3% for single-family homes and 4.6% for medium-sized office buildings. And for single-family homes across all California climates, the study found potential energy cost savings could range from 4–27%.
The study was supported by the Electric Performance Investment Charge program of the California Energy Commission and by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
