Thermal energy storage is key for modern building designs

December 23, 2014

Thermal ice energy storage has recently gained extra attention courtesy of Southern California Edison's recent grid modernization initiative. The planned grid upgrades will help the utility meet Local Capacity Requirements with an increase of 2.2 GW, according to GreenTech Media. Southern California Edison has boosted its capacity through multiple projects, including the deployment of thermal ice storage on facility rooftops that permanently shift the building's load from peak to off peak times. By using thermal energy storage, building managers can change the way their facilities consume electricity for the better. Several features of thermal storage solutions make the installations perfect for modern buildings with today's goals of maintaining efficiency and sustainability far into the future.

Storage offers numerous operational benefits
In addition to helping facilities reduce or eliminate expensive daytime chiller use, thermal energy storage can help improve the operational efficiency of buildings in other ways, said trade publication Buildings. For example, energy storage solutions are well suited for offsetting peak loads of all sizes - chillers alone suffer performance issues when operating far below their intended capacities. Extra thermal storage tanks can be used as a source of dedicated overload cooling in case of a system emergency. In addition, replacing a daytime chiller operation with thermal energy storage helps to minimize daytime noise pollution. These versatile benefits make thermal energy storage appropriate when facility managers look to hedge against unforeseen outages or avoid energy use during peak demand periods.

Flexible installation options can meet the needs of design
Ice storage solutions have been around for years, and applications of the technology are surprisingly space efficient. A footprint of a quarter of 1 percent of a building's air-conditioned square footage is necessary to offset up to 30 percent of a building's peak cooling load, that's the relative size of a water heater in a 2,000 square foot home. The thermal solution supported by Southern California Edison was installed on a building roof, but storage equipment like ice tanks can also be installed inside, outside, underground or partially buried. This modular approach to thermal storage installation allows facility managers to add storage as a building's capacity needs change as well. These features make ice energy storage affordable for building designers to incorporate energy storage into dense urban environments.

Climate change increases the value of thermal storage
Research from the September 2014 edition of the ASHRAE Journal pointed toward thermal storage as a key component of green building design's forward movement. In a scenario where climate change has a high impact on building efficiency and boosts annual energy costs, the report noted thermal storage's unique potential to offset more frequent and increasingly difficult​-to-manage periods of peak demand. The article also noted that many types of facilities, including campus distribution systems, may benefit by adding capacity through thermal storage in the present to anticipate greater peak demands in the future. Since the technology can be used effectively at full or low capacity, thermal storage is a solution that a wide range of facility managers can employ.