Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

China: China's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development have announced that the state will ensure that more than 30% of new construction projects produce green buildings by 2020 via subsidies and lightened administrative requirements. Such a drive is likely to increase demand for insulation in the country. China is expected to invest over US$158bn in energy efficient buildings by 2020.

China has set a 'green' target for the industry for the first time in 'Guidelines on Promoting China's Green Buildings'. Since January 2012, China has issued related documents promoting the Golden Sun project, for energy conservation in new buildings in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and northern China, including the use of renewable energy sources in the buildings.

Green buildings are incorporated in the 12th Five-Year Plan. According to the two ministries, the Chinese government will act via incentive policies, standards, technological progress, industrial supports and accreditation to stimulate all of the sectors that are crucial to green buildings.

China's built-up areas are currently expanding at a rate of two billion square metres per year. The government expects that the operation of buildings will become the biggest energy consumer in the country by 2020, accounting for over 30% of the total at that time. According to preliminary estimates, new buildings being built in the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2010-2015) could save 45Mt/yr of standard coal if the state adopts strict energy saving measures and pushes green construction forward.

UK: Superglass Holdings, which makes glass fibre insulation, has reported that it made a pre-tax profit for the half year that ended on 29 February 2012. It added that market conditions remain difficult and that there is uncertainty over how the UK government's Green Deal environmental policy will operate.

Revenue for the half year rose year-on-year to Euo21.1m from Euro18.4m in the same half year in 2011, an increase of 14%. Pre-tax profit rose to Euro9.92m from a loss of Euro2.7m. Tight control continues to be exercised over costs and working capital.

US: Owens Corning (OC) has reported that its consolidated net sales increased by 9% to US$1.35bn in the first quarter of 2012, compared with US$1.24bn in the same period of 2011. Its first quarter adjusted earnings, (based on the company's expected full-year effective tax rate of 25%), were US$11m compared with US$27m in the same period of 2011. OC reported a net loss of US$46m compared with net earnings of US$24m in the first quarter of 2011.

"OC delivered results in line with our expectations for the quarter," said chairman and CEO Mike Thaman. "We continue to be confident that we will grow our adjusted earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) in 2012."

Although there continues to be uncertainty in the macro-economic outlook, OC expects to grow adjusted EBIT in 2012 based on an improving US housing market and continued growth in global industrial production.The company said that, despite weakness in the European glass fibre reinforcements market, it believes that global glass reinforcements demand will continue to grow in 2012.

Meanwhile depreciation and amortisation expenses are expected to be as much as US$320m in 2012, excluding the impact of the restructuring actions in Europe. OC expects its capital expenditure to be about US$350m in 2012.

The company also announced that its board of directors has authorised the company to repurchase up to 10 million additional shares of its outstanding common stock. Under a previously announced share repurchase programme, 3.7 million shares continue to be available for repurchase.

Spain: Renewable energy advisory firm Renovetec has conducted research into fires at a number of concentrating solar power (CSP) plants in Spain. According to the company, mineral wool used to line the piping containing the heat transfer fluid (HTF) in these plants' solar fields is to blame.

"On occasions the causes of the fires have been unclear," explains Santiago García Garrido, Technical Director of Renovetec. "The HTF has behaved differently to the specifications on its safety sheet".

Renovetec has published an article on its work which examines the relationship between the thermal insulation used to line heat transfer piping and the fires, after the company managed to reproduce the conditions leading to certain fires under laboratory conditions. The tests performed by Renovetec show that the thermal insulation can ignite at below 200°C, whereby there is a risk of spontaneous combustion even if there is no ignition spark or other ignition source.

"This explains some of the incidents at a number of CSP plants," says the company especially given that the ignition point of the HTF generally used in CSP plants (biphenyl and diphenyl oxide) is 615°C – a temperature which is highly unlikely to be reached anywhere on site.

Witnesses of some of the fires recall that the incidents arose when some of the HTF escaped from the piping installed in the solar field soaking the thermal insulation (which is normally mineral wool) covered by an aluminium jacket. On removing the aluminium jacket, the mineral wool occasionally ignited spontaneously. These fires started despite the technical specifications of the HTF manufactured by Dow Chemical and Solutia indicating that the fluid would not ignite.

The outcome of Renovetec's experiment to reproduce the conditions leading to the fires is conclusive: on certain occasions the point of spontaneous combustion is not as reflected in the safety sheets of these HTF, with the liquid igniting at temperatures below 203°C.

Russia: Teplex, a Russian producer of insulation materials, has ordered new equipment to increase its output of extruded polystyrene (XPS) to 500,000m³/yr. The increase in production will give the company a 15% share of the Russian market and meet the demand in the Central, North-Western and Volga Federal Districts of the country. The new equipment will begin production by early 2013.

The company is also in talks to move part of its operations to Novosibirsk in Siberia to meet the needs of the local regional market. The new plant is expected to produce 200,000m³/yr of XPS and will begin operation by early 2014.