PCMs based thermal storage devices for enhancing energy efficiency

Description

To improve the integration of thermal renewables in buildings, the utilization of thermal storage is of fundamental importance. The timing mismatch between thermal energy generation (e.g., for domestic hot water) and utilization is usually a limiting factor in the spread of thermal renewables, such as solar thermal panels. Traditionally water based thermal storage devices are used for accumulating the generated thermal energy to use it during the day. Such a solution has the advantage to be easy and cost-efficient, but in terms of effectiveness, it is not optimal. In the last years, new materials appeared on the market and they can be efficiently employed in thermal energy storage systems. Among these phase change materials (PCMs) can be certainly included. The present contribution aims to quantitatively evaluate the impact that the utilization of PCMs within thermal storage can achieve. A practical case on a domestic application for the city of Genoa (Italy) is proposed. Specific attention will be also devoted to the Life Cycle Analysis of the proposed case with particular attention to the impact that the embodied energy may have on the system. Based on the results obtained, a generalization is proposed and an overall analysis of PCMs along different dimensions (e.g., technical effectiveness, economics, environmental impact, circularity, etc.) is developed to evaluate their potential for large scale applications.

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