Abstract
In the European Union (EU), where architectural heritage is significant, enhancing the energy performance of historical buildings is of great interest. Constraints such as the lack of space, especially within the historical centers and architectural peculiarities, make the application of technologies for renewable energy production and storage a challenging issue. This study presents a prototype system consisting of using the renewable energy from a photovoltaic (PV) array to compress air for a later expansion to produce electricity when needed. The PV-integrated small-scale compressed air energy storage system is designed to address the architectural constraints. It is located in the unoccupied basement of the building. An energy analysis was carried out for assessing the performance of the proposed system. The novelty of this study is to introduce experimental data of a CAES (compressed air energy storage) prototype that is suitable for dwelling applications as well as integration accounting for architectural constraints. The simulation, which was carried out for an average summer day, shows that the compression phase absorbs 32% of the PV energy excess in a vessel of 1.7 m3, and the expansion phase covers 21.9% of the dwelling energy demand. The electrical efficiency of a daily cycle is equal to 11.6%. If air is compressed at 225 bar instead of 30 bar, 96.0% of PV energy excess is stored in a volume of 0.25 m3, with a production of 1.273 kWh, which is 26.0% of the demand.
Highlights
Renewable capacity firming became the crucial challenge to face once targets for the high share of renewables in the energy systems as a key driver of the decarbonisation strategy had been established in national policies [1]
Research studies in 2010 were still arguing that certain energy storage principles such as compressed air energy storage (CAES) and pumped hydro were not suited for small-scale renewable
The paper deals with the integration of renewable energy production and storage in a historical building characterized, for its location, by architectural peculiarities and constraints
Summary
Renewable capacity firming became the crucial challenge to face once targets for the high share of renewables in the energy systems as a key driver of the decarbonisation strategy had been established in national policies [1]. Research studies in 2010 were still arguing that certain energy storage principles such as compressed air energy storage (CAES) and pumped hydro were not suited for small-scale renewable. Subsequent years have shown a growing interest in CAES technologies related to small-scale renewable energy integration such as photovoltaics (PV) and/or micro-wind turbines installations for commercial buildings and residential dwellings by performing simulations of those devices as well as their coupling with building load profiles [7,8]. The need of providing energy storage in system layouts for implementing the forthcoming smart energy systems concept [10,11,12] pushed researchers into trying different technological solutions at the prototype scale with a low technological readiness level [11], mainly from the pre-design of scenarios by means of comparative studies [13]
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