Experimental investigation on packed bed cool storage system for supply-demand management in building air-conditioning system suitable for micro thermal grid

Abstract

In most of the developed nation, the increase in percentage share of renewable power in the total power generation causes major concerns over the integration of these renewable power with the grid resulting grid instability. Energy storage is a new frontier technology which is considered as the ultimate solution in developing micro-smart grid with distributed renewable power generation. Most of the hot countries like India spend nearly 24% of the electricity generated on air-conditioning and food preservation. Under such scenario, among the various types of storage systems, the cool thermal storage plays a vital role to promote renewable power in an economical way. Considering the importance in the present renewable energy scenario, in the present work, an experimental investigation was performed on a packed bed cool storage system integrated with a chiller system which has major advantages in central air-conditioning system for demand management strategies. The storage system consists of encapsulated spherical balls filled with a mixture of distilled water and pseudomonas (nucleating agent) as phase change material and a mixture of distilled water and mono-ethylene glycol as heat transfer fluid. The essential parameters such as reduction in subcooling, instantaneous, and cumulative heat transfer during the charging process are presented for the efficient operation.