Pressurized, ice-storing chilled water system

摘要

A sealed, pressurized thermal storage system (20) which uses ice as the static thermal storage medium. The system is applicable to diverse cooling and storage requirements such as air conditioning and other relatively large scale cooling loads. The heart of the system is one or more ice-storage chilled water heat exchangers (21, 40) which form a closed pressurized water circulation system (21) with the loads (22) for circulating chilled water thereto. A refrigeration piping system (55, 57) circulates refrigerant through the water heat exchanger(s) (21, 40) for cooling the sealed water system and for making and storing ice along the refrigerant piping (55) within the water heat exchanger (40). An overflow/return circuit (27) compensates for pressure variations within the sealed water system, e.g., to accommodate volume changes in the stored ice.