Sustainable thermal energy storage technologies for buildings: A review

摘要

Energy management in buildings is indispensable which would control the energy use as well as the cost involved while maintaining comfort conditions and requirements in indoor environments. Energy management is intensely coupled with energy efficiency and increasing of which would provide a cost-effective pathway for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, the magnitude of energy consumption in buildings seems to crest from the norm af demand and th at has to be carefully addressed through implementing energy conservative and energy management techniques. In the class of having several energy efficient schemes, thermal energy storage (TES) technologies for buildings are increas-ingly attractive among architects and engineers. In the scenario of growing energy demand worldwide, the possibility of improving the energy efficiency of TES systems can be achieved from break-thrpugh research efforts. The prime intention of this paper is to review the potential research studies pertatn-ing to a variety of latent heat energy storage (LHES) and cool thermal energy storage (CTES) systems solely dedicated for building heating, cooling and air conditioning (A/C) applications. Technical revela-tions regarding the integration and performance evaluation of heat storage materials in building fabric elements as well as using separate heat storage facility to satisfy the space thermal toad demand have been gleaned from numerous research contributions and presented. Emphasis is also given on advanced heat storage materials produced using micro and nanoparticles to realize their improved heat transfer characteristics which would eventually enhance the overall performance of these TES systems. Further-more, the sustainable aspects of these TES systems to gain the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) credentials for low carbon/high performance buildings are signified.