Application of an active PCM storage system into a building for heating/cooling load reduction

Abstract

Incorporation of phase change materials (PCMs) into buildings has recently attracted widespread attention as they can bridge the mismatch between energy supply and demand through their large energy storage capacity. This paper presents the use of an active PCM storage system in buildings and evaluates its energy performance over the different seasons. To this end, two experimental huts, each equipped with solar and electric heaters in winter or an air conditioning unit in summer, were used to investigate the concept. Also, one of the huts was provided with PCM storage units, and the results obtained were compared with those collected from the reference hut. A CompactRIO, data acquisition system, powered by LabVIEW real-time software, was used to transfer data for analysis, processing, and communicating with the host computer. In this research, the active PCM storage units could store solar energy in cold seasons or free night cooling in warm seasons for later use and hence reduce the heating/cooling load requirements. An accumulative heating energy savings of 40% in May and 10.3% in June/July 2019, were achieved. The use of PCM for space cooling also led to an accumulative energy-saving of 30% in March/April and 10% in January.