Thermal energy storage article

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 for building applications?

The combination of thermal energy storage technologies for building applications reduces the peak loads, separation of energy requirement from its availability, it also allows to combine the renewable energy sources, for efficient utilization of thermal energy .

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 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.

Are social aspects of thermal energy storage still relevant?

The same conclusion applies to the social aspects related to the integration of thermal energy storage into the energy infrastructure. However, although social acceptance and aspects related to user are becoming important, this aspect is still green to be relevant in the study of TES technologies.