Performance assessment of stratified chilled water thermal energy storage tank at district cooling plant

Abstract

Thermal energy storage (TES) is the key component of the district cooling (DC) plants. Its performance is important to be analysed. Various works have been carried out to analyse the TES tank performance. Among the methods, the most common are thermocline thickness and figure of merit. In this study nonlinear regression is used to analyse the temperature profiles of a stratified TES tank at DC plant at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS. The TES performance was also evaluated using thermocline thickness and 1/2FOM. Results indicate curve fitting approach is enabled to plot temperature profiles during charging. The plots assist in understanding the development of thermocline within the TES tank during charging process. Results on the thermocline thickness and 1/2FOM during the understudy charging period indicate increased of thermocline thickness and decreased of 1/2FOM values respectively during the study period. Hence it can be concluded that deterioration occurred to the TES tank during the study period.