An Introduction to Solid–Liquid Thermal Energy Storage Systems

Abstract

By increasing energy generation from renewable sources, energy storage remains as a key issue due to intermittent character of the renewable energy sources. For the many applications, battery storage remains expensive; therefore, alternative forms of energy storage including thermal energy storage are called for. Among discovered thermal energy storage systems, the solid–liquid thermal energy storage has considerably attracted attentions due to high thermal storage capacity and simple principle of working; however, still its difficulties bound its spreading for further applications. The need for thermal storage in this century as well as the advantages of solid–liquid thermal storage motivated many researchers to study on methods to overcome the difficulties and spread its applications. This book offers a combination of theoretical, numerical and experimental techniques to address difficulties, solutions and recent developments in applications areas. This chapter briefly explains needs for thermal storage in this century, classification of thermal storage, challenges of phase change materials and their recent applications. The important knowledge provided by valuable authors in this book sheds light to complete this chapter.