Analysis of Operational Energy Cost of Typical Residential Building (in Guwahati Located in Northeastern India) with Foam Concrete as Walling Material

The building construction sector is known around the world for its huge energy consumption with a significant proportion contributed by the building’s operations phase alone. This encourages us to investigate alternative building materials in order to reduce the energy consumption of buildings. Foam concrete (FC) is one such energy-saving material with special attributes such as low density (400–1850 kg/m3) and excellent insulating characteristics. The main facet of the present study includes investigations on operational energy cost of typical G + 1 bungalow located in the Guwahati city (in Northeastern region of India) for different scenarios of walling materials (FC, autoclaved aerated concrete block (AAC) and clay brick). Experimental outcomes indicated that thermal conductivity of AAC block and FC of density 1000 kg/m3 are found to be very much lower than that of conventional clay brick. Further results on energy simulation analysis showed that building with AAC block (density 660 kg/m3) and FC (density 1000 kg/m3) as walling material exhibited yearly energy consumption of 15,188.24 and 15,608.75 kWh, respectively, which is comparatively lower than that of clay bricks (16,187.13 kWh). Adding to above, use of better insulating walling material also results in reduction of CO2 emission by 53.99 and 31.26 tons for AAC block and FC (density 1000 kg/m3), respectively. The above results highlight that FC can serve as a better energy-efficient alternative to conventional walling material.