Thermal energy storage review

What is a thermal energy storage system?

By heating (or cooling) a storage medium, thermal energy storage systems (TES) store heat (or cold). As a result, further energy supply is not required, and the overall energy efficiency is increased. In most cases, the stored heat is a by-product or waste heat from an industrial process, or a primary source of renewable heat from the sun.

What are the different types of thermal energy storage systems?

Thermal energy storage (TES) systems store heat or cold for later use and are classified into sensible heat storage, latent heat storage, and thermochemical heat storage. Sensible heat storage systems raise the temperature of a material to store heat. Latent heat storage systems use PCMs to store heat through melting or solidifying.

Why is thermal energy storage important?

Thermal energy storage (TES) is increasingly important due to the demand-supply challenge caused by the intermittency of renewable energy and waste heat dissipation to the environment. This paper discusses the fundamentals and novel applications of TES materials and identifies appropriate TES materials for particular applications.

Can thermal energy storage be used in solar-assisted thermal systems?

Consequently, thermal storage found use in solar-assisted thermal systems . Since then, studying thermal energy storage technologies as well as the usability and effects of both sensible and latent heat storage in numerous applications increased, leading to a number of reviews [11, 12, 13, 14, 15].

What is a thermal energy storage system (PCM)?

Thermal energy storage for medical applications Recently, PCMs are also used for different biomedical applications, due to its specific heat absorbing and heat rejecting properties.

What is thermal energy storage & utilization?

Currently thermal energy storage and utilization is focused only on few areas such as building applications, and some industrial applications. But TES technology can be adopted for wide range of applications.