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Thermal Energy Storage in Building Integrated Thermal Systems

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A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "G: Energy and Buildings".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 July 2021) | Viewed by 30057

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Nicola Bianco

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Guest Editor

Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, 80125 Napoli, Italy
Interests: heat transfer in energy systems; thermal energy storage; optimization techniques in heat transfer and energy systems; energy saving in buildings
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Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Ascione

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Co-Guest Editor

Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, 80138 Napoli NA, Italy
Interests: energy efficiency in buildings; heat transfer; HVAC systems; thermal envelope; renewable technologies at the building scale; net zero-energy buildings
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In June 2018, the EU Parliament and Council enacted a new Recast of Energy Performance of Building Directive, the EPBD 2018/844, establishing more ambitious targets for the future. As stated by the EU Lex, it is necessary to focus on decarbonizing the EU building stock, and, in order to do this, long-term strategies of energy refurbishment and the transformation of the existing buildings into nearly zero-energy ones are needed. In this frame, thermal energy storage systems should have a primary role, both applied to building envelopes and to HVAC equipment. Thermal storage systems can improve the thermal inertia of the building shell, and they can also have application in active energy systems (such as, for instance, phase change materials in components of heating and cooling systems). In order to improve thermal and energy performances of such systems, research efforts have to be increased, by analyzing both the thermal behavior of the involved materials and the energy performance of the whole system.

This Special Issue of Energies is entirely focused on Thermal Energy Storage in Building Integrated Thermal Systems, not limited but open to building itself, its energy systems and renewables at the building scale.

Prof. Nicola Bianco
Prof. Fabrizio Ascione
Guest Editors

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Keywords

Building energy efficiency
Sustainability and environment
Building performance
Thermal energy storage
Thermal inertia
Phase change materials (PCM)
Materials for energy efficiency
Organic materials
HVAC systems and equipment

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

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22 pages, 7020 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Influence of Air Vents Management on Trombe Wall Temperature Fluctuations: An Experimental Analysis under Real Climate Conditions

by Ana Briga-Sá, Anabela Paiva, João-Carlos Lanzinha, José Boaventura-Cunha and Luís Fernandes

Energies 2021, 14(16), 5043; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14165043 - 17 Aug 2021

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2087

Abstract

The Trombe wall is a passive solar system that can improve buildings energy efficiency. Despite the studies already developed in this field, more research is needed to assess the possibility of its integration in buildings avoiding user intervention. In this study, the influence of air vent management and materials’ heat storage capacity upon its thermal performance, particularly in the temperature fluctuation and indoor conditions, was discussed. Comparing two days with similar solar radiation (SR) for non-ventilated (NVTW) and ventilated (VTW) Trombe walls, a differential of 43 °C between the external surface temperature and the one in the middle of the massive wall was verified for NVTW, while for VTW this value was 27 °C, reflecting the heat transfer by air convection, which reduced greenhouse effect, solar absorption and heat storage. A cooling capacity greater than 50% was verified for VTW compared to NVTW during night periods. An algorithm for the Trombe wall’s automation and control was proposed considering SR as variable. Air vents and external shading devices should be open when SR exceeds 100 W/m² and closed for 50 W/m² to obtain at least 20 °C inside the room. Closing for 50 W/m² and opening for values lower that 20 W/m² is suggested for summer periods. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermal Energy Storage in Building Integrated Thermal Systems)

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17 pages, 4015 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Heat Transfer with Phase Change in a Multilayer Construction: Simulation versus Experiment

by Tomasz Kułakowski, Michał Krempski-Smejda and Dariusz Heim

Energies 2021, 14(15), 4390; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14154390 - 21 Jul 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1678

Abstract

The latent heat storage in the layer of phase change material (PCM) exposed to dynamic changes in boundary temperature was investigated numerically and experimentally. The original numerical model of heat transfer with phase change using a mushy volume approach was proposed and validated. The main improvement in the proposed model in comparison to others is that the compaction of the mesh and longitude of the time step were chosen after analysis of its impact in the field of error. The model was tested in the case of thin layer structure of the triple glazing window with one cavity filled with phase change material paraffin RT18HC. The experimental validation was carried out in the climatic chamber under dynamic changes in external temperature (from 10 to 50 °C) in a daily cycle. The highest accuracy was obtained for space discretization of the control volume 1 mm thick (12 CV for 12 mm of PCM layer) and 5 min time step. The obtained RMSE values, although they cannot be directly compared because of the very different approaches to the simulations, show that the proposed algorithm is sufficiently accurate for the assessment of energy storage in the PCM window. Both the simulation and experiment proved that, under specific conditions, implementation of the PCM into the structure resulted in delaying the peak for around 4 h. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermal Energy Storage in Building Integrated Thermal Systems)

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14 pages, 19092 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Impact of Tube Bundle Placement on the Thermal Charging of a Latent Heat Storage Unit

by Mohammad Ghalambaz, Amir Hossein Eisapour, Hayder I. Mohammed, Mohammad S. Islam, Obai Younis, Pouyan Talebizadeh Sardari and Wahiba Yaïci

Energies 2021, 14(5), 1289; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14051289 - 26 Feb 2021

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1860

Abstract

The melting process of a multi-tube’s thermal energy storage system in the existence of free convection effects is a non-linear and important problem. The placement of heated tubes could change the convective thermal circulation. In the present study, the impact of the position of seven heat exchanger tubes was systematically investigated. The energy charging process was numerically studied utilizing liquid fraction and stored energy with exhaustive temperature outlines. The tubes of heat transfer fluid were presumed in the unit with different locations. The unit’s heat transfer behavior was assessed by studying the liquid fraction graphs, streamlines, and isotherm contours. Each of the design factors was divided into four levels. To better investigate the design space for the accounted five variables and four levels, an L16 orthogonal table was considered. Changing the location of tubes could change the melting rate by 28%. The best melting rate was 94% after four hours of charging. It was found that the tubes with close distance could overheat each other and reduce the total heat transfer. The study of isotherms and streamlines showed the general circulation of natural convection flows at the final stage of melting was the most crucial factor in the melting of top regions of the unit and reduces the charging time. Thus, particular attention to the tubes’ placement should be made so that the phase change material could be quickly melted at both ends of a unit. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermal Energy Storage in Building Integrated Thermal Systems)

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15 pages, 10955 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Thermal Analysis of Organic and Nanoencapsulated Electrospun Phase Change Materials

by Evdoxia Paroutoglou, Peter Fojan, Leonid Gurevich, Göran Hultmark and Alireza Afshari

Energies 2021, 14(4), 995; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14040995 - 14 Feb 2021

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2276

Abstract

Latent heat stored in phase change materials (PCM) can greatly improve energy efficiency in indoor heating/cooling applications. This study presents the materials and methods for the formation and characterization of a PCM layer for a latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) application. Four commercially available PCMs comprising the classes of organic paraffins and organic non-paraffins were selected for thermal storage application. Pure organic PCM and PCM in water emulsions were experimentally investigated. PCM electrospun microfibers were produced by a co-axial electrospinning technique, where solutions of Polycaprolactone (PCL) 9% w/v and 12% w/v in dichloromethane (DCM) were used as the fiber shell materials. PCM emulsified with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), and Polyvinylalcohol 10% w/v (PVA) constituted the core of the fibers. The thermal behavior of the PCM, PCM emulsions, and PCM electrospun fibers were analyzed with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). A commercial organic paraffin with a phase change temperature of 18 °C (RT 18) in its pure and emulsified forms was found to be a suitable PCM candidate for LHTES. The PVA-PCM electrospun fiber matrix of the organic paraffin RT18 with a PCL concentration of 12% w/v showed the most promising results leading to an encapsulation efficiency of 67%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermal Energy Storage in Building Integrated Thermal Systems)

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22 pages, 1535 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Development and Validation of a Latent Thermal Energy Storage Model Using Modelica

by Dre Helmns, David H. Blum, Spencer M. Dutton and Van P. Carey

Energies 2021, 14(1), 194; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14010194 - 02 Jan 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4291

Abstract

An abundance of research has been performed to understand the physics of latent thermal energy storage with phase change material. Some analytical and numerical findings have been validated by experiments, but there are few free and open-source models available to the general public for use in systems simulation and analysis. The Modelica programming language is a good avenue to make such models available, because it is object-oriented, equation-based, declarative, and acausal. These characteristics have enabling the creation of component model libraries that can be used to build larger system simulations for design analysis. The authors have previously developed a numerical framework to model phase change thermal storage and have validated model predictions with experiments. The objectives of this paper are to describe the transfer of the numerical framework to an implementation in a Modelica component model and to validate the Modelica model with data from the experiment and the original numerical framework. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermal Energy Storage in Building Integrated Thermal Systems)

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40 pages, 11186 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Integration of Micro-Cogeneration Units and Electric Storages into a Micro-Scale Residential Solar District Heating System Operating with a Seasonal Thermal Storage

by Antonio Rosato, Antonio Ciervo, Giovanni Ciampi, Michelangelo Scorpio and Sergio Sibilio

Energies 2020, 13(20), 5456; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13205456 - 19 Oct 2020

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2300

Abstract

A micro-scale district heating network based on the operation of solar thermal collectors coupled to a long-term borehole thermal storage is modeled, simulated and investigated over a period of five years. The plant is devoted to covering the domestic hot water and space heating demands of a district composed of six typical residential buildings located in Naples (southern Italy). Three alternative natural gas-fueled back-up auxiliary systems (condensing boiler and two different technologies of micro-cogeneration) aiming at balancing the solar energy intermittency are investigated. The utilization of electric storages in combination with the cogeneration systems is also considered with the aim of improving the self-consumption of cogenerated electric energy; heat recovery from the distribution circuit is also evaluated to pre-heat the mains water for domestic hot water production. The performances of the proposed plant schemes are contrasted with those of a typical Italian decentralized heating plant (based on the utilization of natural gas-fueled non-condensing boilers). The comparison highlighted that the proposed configurations can decrease the primary energy consumption (up to 11.3%), the equivalent emissions of carbon dioxide (up to 11.3%), and the operation costs (up to 14.3%), together with an acceptable simple pay-back period (about 4.4 years). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermal Energy Storage in Building Integrated Thermal Systems)

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15 pages, 2828 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Characterization of Hybrid-nano/Paraffin Organic Phase Change Material for Thermal Energy Storage Applications in Solar Thermal Systems

by Manoj Kumar Pasupathi, Karthick Alagar, Michael Joseph Stalin P, Matheswaran M.M and Ghosh Aritra

Energies 2020, 13(19), 5079; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13195079 - 29 Sep 2020

Cited by 126 | Viewed by 4835

Abstract

In this work, the experimental investigations were piloted to study the influence of hybrid nanoparticles containing SiO₂ and CeO₂ nanoparticles on thermo-physical characteristics of the paraffin-based phase change material (PCM). Initially, the hybrid nanoparticles were prepared by blending equal mass of SiO₂ and CeO₂ nanoparticles. The hybrid-nano/paraffin (HnP) samples were prepared by cautiously dispersing 0, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 percentage mass of hybrid nanoparticles inside the paraffin, respectively. The synthesized samples were examined under different instruments such as field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA), and thermal properties analyzer to ascertain the influence of hybrid nanoparticles on thermo-physical characteristics of the prepared samples. The obtained experimental results proved that the hybrid nanoparticles were uniformly diffused in the paraffin matrix without affecting the chemical arrangement of paraffin molecules. Prominently, the relative thermal stability and relative thermal conductivity of the paraffin were synergistically enriched up to 115.49% and 165.56%, respectively, when dispersing hybrid nanoparticles within paraffin. Furthermore, the hybrid nanoparticles appropriately amended the melting and crystallization point of the paraffin to reduce its supercooling, and the maximum reduction in supercooling was ascertained as 35.81%. The comprehensive studies indicated that the paraffin diffused with SiO₂ and CeO₂ hybrid nanoparticles at 1.0 mass percentage would yield a better outcome compared to the next higher mass fractions without much diminishing the latent heat of paraffin. Hence, it is recommended to utilize the hybrid-nano/paraffin with 1.0 mass fraction of the aforementioned hybrid nanoparticles for effectively augmenting the thermal energy capacity of low-temperature solar thermal systems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermal Energy Storage in Building Integrated Thermal Systems)

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26 pages, 2959 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On the Performance of Night Ventilation in a Historic Office Building in Nordic Climate

by Hossein Bakhtiari, Jan Akander, Mathias Cehlin and Abolfazl Hayati

Energies 2020, 13(16), 4159; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13164159 - 11 Aug 2020

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 2463

Abstract

The effect of mechanical night ventilation on thermal comfort and electricity use for cooling of a typical historic office building in north-central Sweden was assessed. IDA-ICE simulation program was used to model the potential for improving thermal comfort and electricity savings by applying night ventilation cooling. Parametric study comprised different outdoor climates, flow rates, cooling machine’s coefficient of performance and ventilation units’ specific fan power values. Additionally, the effect of different door schemes (open or closed) on thermal comfort in offices was investigated. It was shown that night ventilation cannot meet the building’s total cooling demand and auxiliary active cooling is required, although the building is located in a cold climate. Night ventilation had the potential in decreasing the percentage of exceedance hours in offices by up to 33% and decreasing the total electricity use for cooling by up to 40%. More electricity is saved with higher night ventilation rates. There is, however, a maximum beneficial ventilation rate above which the increase in electricity use in fans outweighs the decrease in electricity use in cooling machine. It depends on thermal mass capacity of the building, cooling machine´s coefficient of performance, design ventilation rate, and available night ventilation cooling potential (ambient air temperature). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermal Energy Storage in Building Integrated Thermal Systems)

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20 pages, 4033 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Application and Validation of a Dynamic Energy Simulation Tool: A Case Study with Water Flow Glazing Envelope

by Belen Moreno Santamaria, Fernando del Ama Gonzalo, Danielle Pinette, Roberto-Alonso Gonzalez-Lezcano, Benito Lauret Aguirregabiria and Juan A. Hernandez Ramos

Energies 2020, 13(12), 3203; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13123203 - 19 Jun 2020

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 2390

Abstract

The transparent materials used in building envelopes significantly contribute to heating and cooling loads of a building. The use of transparent materials requires to solve issues regarding heat gain, heat loss, and daylight. Water flow glazing (WFG), a disruptive technology, includes glazing as part of the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system. Water is transparent to visible wavelengths, but it captures most of the infrared solar radiation. As an alternative to fossil fuel-based HVAC systems, the absorbed energy can be transferred to the ground through borehole heat exchangers and dissipated as a means of free-cooling. Researchers of the Polytechnic University of Madrid have developed a software tool to calculate the energy balance while incorporating the dynamic properties of WFG. This article has studied the mathematical model of that tool and validated its ability to predict energy savings in buildings, taking spectral and thermal parameters of glazing catalogs, commercial software, and inputs from the measurements of the prototypes. The results found in this article showed that it is possible to predict the thermal behavior of WFG and the energy savings by comparing the thermal parameters of two prototypes. The energy absorbed by the water depends on the mass flow rate and the inlet and outlet temperatures. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermal Energy Storage in Building Integrated Thermal Systems)

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Review

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44 pages, 7504 KiB

Open AccessReview

The Impact of Heat Exchangers’ Constructions on the Melting and Solidification Time of Phase Change Materials

by Ewelina Radomska, Lukasz Mika, Karol Sztekler and Lukasz Lis

Energies 2020, 13(18), 4840; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13184840 - 16 Sep 2020

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4184

Abstract

An application of latent heat thermal energy storage systems with phase change materials seems to be unavoidable in the present world. The latent heat thermal energy storage systems allow for storing excessive heat during low demand and then releasing it during peak demand. However, a phase change material is only one of the components of a latent heat thermal energy storage system. The second part of the latent heat thermal energy storage is a heat exchanger that allows heat transfer between a heat transfer fluid and a phase change material. Thus, the main aim of this review paper is to present and systematize knowledge about the heat exchangers used in the latent heat thermal energy storage systems. Furthermore, the operating parameters influencing the phase change time of phase change materials in the heat exchangers, and the possibilities of accelerating the phase change are discussed. Based on the literature reviewed, it is found that the phase change time of phase change materials in the heat exchangers can be reduced by changing the geometrical parameters of heat exchangers or by using fins, metal foams, heat pipes, and multiple phase change materials. To decrease the phase change material’s phase change time in the tubular heat exchangers it is recommended to increase the number of tubes keeping the phase change material’s mass constant. In the case of tanks filled with spherical phase change material’s capsules, the capsules’ diameter should be reduced to shorten the phase change time. However, it is found that some changes in the constructions of heat exchangers reduce the melting time of the phase change materials, but they increase the solidification time. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermal Energy Storage in Building Integrated Thermal Systems)

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