Preliminary assessment of a heating system coupled with a TCM storage

Renewable energy technologies have become of great interest to decarbonize the heating and cooling sector. The adoption of energy storage technologies is crucial to overcome the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources, facilitating the electrification of heating and cooling plants, and increasing the flexibility of the electric grid. This work aims to conduct a preliminary study regarding an innovative heating system coupled with thermo-chemical storage. The energy system provides heating and cooling to a building and is characterized by different operating modes, namely heating, cooling, recharge, and ice-formation. Each of these modes of operation is evaluated from the energy point of view, considering the system’s main components: TCM reactor, fan, ultrasonic humidifier, heat pump, PCM storage, and ice storage. This thesis provides an introduction, a state-of-the-art analysis, a presentation of the proposal, and an explanation of the models built to simulate the operating modes. The working principle relies on the adsorption and desorption reactions in order to heat the airflow or recharge the reactor respectively. During the discharging of the TCM which happens during the heating and cooling operations, part of the water content of the air is adsorbed by the reactor to release the heat that is collected by two heat exchangers that allow for the extraction of the thermal power from the system to make it available to the user. The heating operation requires the aid of an external PCM storage to preheat the airflow downstream of the cycle while this task is done by the user cooling water during the free-cooling operation. The recharging operation of the reactor’s TCM is achieved by feeding the material with a greater temperature airflow to promote the desorption process resulting in the cooling and dehumidification of the air. The ice-formation operation consists of the simultaneous recharging of both the TCM and the ice-storage exploiting both the condenser and evaporator’s heat. The system exploits the energy produced by renewable energy technologies in an asynchronous mode with respect to their production, thus allowing for peak shaving and lowering the electrical energy extracted by the grid. Results show this technology has great potential, but experimental tests are needed to verify the system during off-design phases.