Experimental investigation of chilled water storage technique for peak power shaving

Abstract

A cool storage-assisted cooling system using chilled water was designed, installed and tested. A small capacity conventional chiller was used for cooling. The chilled water storage consists of two thermally stratified vertical fibreglass tanks each of 7500 l capacity. Collection of performance data commenced in June 1987 and repetitive performance data were collected for the system simulated in a residential and a non-residential application. The project provided valuable experience and necessary expertise for design, installation and operation of cool storage-assisted cooling systems for commercial and residential sectors. Performance results of the chilled water storage system are in accordance with earlier analytical estimates. However, the electricity consumption by the cool storage-assisted system was found to be more than the earlier estimated values. Nevertheless, the storage system showed excellent economics such as a 50% reduction in the capital cost and over 25% reduction in the cost of cooling.