Investigation of viability of seasonal waste heat storage in rock piles for remote communities in cold climates

Abstract

Communities situated in distant areas are deemed as 'remote' and have either very limited or no access to power grid lines. Therefore, most of these communities greatly depend on diesel-burning for power and heat provision at all times. Nonetheless, nearly 30% of the energy associated with the diesel burning and power generation process is dissipated as heat through the exhaust streams of diesel generators. The waste heat in the exhaust stream is usually recovered during the winter season and directly used as a heat source when the communal heat demand is peaked. However, recovery of this energy potential is usually discarded during the summer period due to the low demand. Seasonal thermal storage on rock piles is a developing concept that can be a low-cost solution to resolve this issue. This paper proposes utilization of the heat wasted through the exhaust stream of diesel generators on rock piles as temporary storage during low demand times. In this sense, a remote cold climate community, such as those of Canada and Norway, is selected and potentiality of the seasonal rock pile thermal storage is investigated and presented.