Abstract
During annual operation, a heat pump produces both heating and cooling effects, so it would be of great advantage to store one of the two to be then used when it is necessary. To do this, a seasonal energy storage is necessary. This paper presents results relative to the use of a ground ice thermal energy storage (I-TES) integrated with a reversible heat pump for annual air conditioning. The energy analysis is based on heating and cooling loads for a residential building located in Milan. In particular, the focus is on the most important parameters affecting the performance of both the whole system and the Ice Tank, which is the position and the thickness of the insulation layers and the shape of the ice tank. A biannual simulation of the system allows for a full description of the ice tank behavior during the charging and discharging processes. The main objective of the study is to suggest a first tentative procedure to design the I-TES integrated system with the best energy performance.
Highlights
In temperate climates, reversible heat pumps usually provide heating in winter and cooling in summer
This paper shows the results relative to the implementation of an ice thermal energy storage (I-thermal energy storage (TES)) integrated with an HP for annual air conditioning
Many ice tank (IT) cases with different insulation layer thicknesses and shapes were compared in order to analyze their effects on the primary energy consumption of the system
Summary
Reversible heat pumps usually provide heating in winter and cooling in summer. The heat released at the condenser could be stored in summer when producing cooling, and the cold produced at the evaporator could be stored in winter when producing heating. As a matter of fact, the problem is to provide a storage of sufficient size to store/release the large quantities of energy available during a whole heating or cooling period. The combination of ground source heat pumps (GSHP) and thermal energy storage (TES) systems can be a viable solution in cases with a heating and cooling imbalance [1,2,3,4]. Phase change materials (PCM), water, soil, solar thermal collectors and ice storage tanks are the main TES technologies integrated with GSHP systems [5,6]
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