Cost-Effectiveness Opportunities for Thermal Energy Storage Systems: A Case Study of School Building in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Air conditioning in houses, office buildings and schools consume high portion of the generated electricity in Saudi Arabia. This paper presents a study of the economic opportunities afforded by installing an ice storage system to existing air conditioning plants of a school in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In this paper, the assumptions are i) fixed interest rate of 10%, ii) a tenure of 10 years and iii) estimated operational tariff structure depending on both the number of operating hours and the ambient temperature. The study examines both full and partial load storage scenarios then calculates the effect of various pricing tariffs on cost optimization. The results show that the current fixed electricity tariff rate of $0.0267/kWh which is not economically feasible. Combining both the energy storage and an incentive time structured rate shows reasonable daily bill savings. For a base tariff of $0.07/kWh during daytime operation and $0.0267/kWh for the off-peak period, savings of $33/d and $73.36/d is achievable for full load storage and partial load scenarios, respectively. These savings will increase to $159/d for full load storage and $124.06/d for partial load storage after 10 years.