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At present, architects and engineers design in such a way that their projects comply with the local regulations of the place where they are working. However these local rules are not enough to achieve the sustainability objectives set by the European Union for 2020. The selection of one building material or another will establish, in part, the building's global environmental impact. For this reason it is increasingly necessary to characterize, on an environmental level, building materials, in order to be able to prescribe the most suitable material to incorporate to architectural projects. Taking into account that thermal insulation materials are one of the key elements in construction, since they help the building's energy saving, the environmental impact of extruded polystyrene, glass wool and cork are assessed in this article in a comparative manner, by the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology. In conclusion, according to the results obtained, there is not one best product, environmentally speaking, for all the impact categories analyzed. The choice of a material or another must be done adopting a solution of global commitment, cork being the best material out of the ones selected.Key words: Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), building sustainability, thermal insulation materials. ResumenEn la actualidad, arquitectos e ingenieros diseñan de tal manera que sus proyectos cumplan con las regulaciones locales del lugar donde están trabajando. Sin embargo, estas normativas locales no son suficientes para alcanzar los objetivos de sostenibilidad que marca la Unión Europea para el año 2020. La selección de un material de construcción u otro establecerá, en parte, el impacto ambiental global del edificio, por ello se hace cada vez más necesario tener caracterizados, a nivel medioambiental, los materiales de construcción, para poder prescribir el material más adecuado a incorporar en los proyectos arquitectónicos. Dado que los materiales de aislamiento térmico son uno de los elementos clave en la construcción, ya que ayudan al ahorro energético del edificio, en este artículo se evalúa, de manera comparativa, el impacto ambiental del poliestireno extruido, la lana de vidrio y el corcho, a través de la metodología de Análisis de Ciclo de Vida (ACV). Como conclusión, tras los resultados obtenidos se observa que no existe un producto ambientalmente mejor, para todas las categorías de impacto analizadas, sino que la selección de un material u otro ha de realizarse adoptando una solución de compromiso global, siendo el corcho el mejor material de los seleccionados.Palabras clave: Análisis de ciclo de vida (ACV), sostenibilidad en la edificación, materiales de aislamiento térmico.

SUMMARYThe construction industry is one of the less sustainable activities on the planet: with a consumption of 40% of the materials entering the global economy and the generation of 40-50% of the global output of greenhouse gases. The biggest environmental impact caused by buildings is generated during their use phase due to the energy consumption for thermal conditioning. Addition of green elements to buildings is used to improve energy efficiency of buildings. In this study Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology has been applied to quantify the environmental impact of the green roofs materials to analyze its environmental profile. The identification of hot spots of the system permits an ecodesign strategy that effectively reduces environmental burdens associated with roof construction, optimizing the environmental performance. The results identify the high environmental impact associated to the structure, the important contribution of the felt wick irrigation system and the extruded polystyrene thermal insulation.

On-site photovoltaic (PV) and battery systems intend to improve buildings energy performance, however battery costs and monetary incentives are a major drawback for the introduction of these technologies into the electricity grids. This paper proposes an energy refurbishment of an office building based on multi-objective simulations. An innovative demand-side management approach is analyzed through the PV and battery control with the purpose of reducing grid power peaks and grid imported energy, as well as improving the project economy. Optimization results of load matching and grid interaction parameters, complemented with an economic analysis, are investigated in different scenarios. By means of battery use, the equivalent use of the grid connection is reduced by 12%, enhancing the grid interaction potential, and 10% of load matching rates can be increased. Project improvements indicate the grid connection capacity can be reduced by 13% and significant savings of up to 48% are achieved on yearly bills. The economy demonstrates the grid parity is only achieved for battery costs below 100 €/kWh and the payback period is large: 28 years. In the case with only PV system, the grid parity achieves better outcomes and the payback time is reduced by a half, making this a more attractive option.