BUILDING ENERGY EFFICIENT SYSTEM THROUGH SHORT AND LONG SPECTRUM THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE

Buildings consume most of the world’s electricity and as much as 50% of their consumption is used to cover thermal demands.

Some actual developments, such as the growing use of electrical vehicles and the usage of heat pumps, are affecting electricity consumption and peak demand, and their impacts will only increase in the future. The excessive high energy demand entails significant negative environmental and economic impacts.

Consequently, it is imperative to increase use of demand response strategies that shift electricity use from peak to off-peak periods.

The BEST-Storage project is an important step to achieve the goal of peak load reduction and shifting, energy saving and energy cost minimization.

Moreover, technologies for storing renewables for longer time-spans of months or seasons are scarce and costly and thus not widely used yet.

Large amounts of energy are needed for heat supply of buildings in cold winter months, when solar energy is scarce and in general when renewable sources cannot cover the demand. Thus, seasonal storage solutions will be a necessary technology for a full decarbonisation of the energy supply system.

In BEST-Storage, long and short-term high-energy density storage solutions will be developed and demonstrated in four demo cases around Europe. A thermo-chemical and loss-free storage technology will be developed as a seasonal storage.

Two phase change materials slurry concepts and a vacuum insulated water storage will be developed, for cold and warm applications respectively, with the aim of shifting peak load demands.

Finally, storage solutions will be integrated within smart building energy management systems featuring model predictive controls to reduce operation cost for short-term applications.