Advanced low-carbon energy measures based on thermal energy storage in buildings: A review
Abstract Thermal energy storage and management in builtable dings play a major role in the transition towards a low-carbon economy. Buildings are the largest energy-consuming sector in the world, where heating and cooling are around 60–70%. This paper provides a comprehensive review of advanced low-carbon energy measures based on thermal energy storage technologies for heating and cooling applications in buildings. With the aim of structuring and identifying the most promising solutions towards low-carbon energy buildings, a global classification of technologies for thermal storage and management is carried out. The most advanced commercial solutions, emerging technologies, and recent research activities reported in the literature and international projects are analysed. The main achievements are reported together with the status of research and the most promising solutions in the short- and long-term. It is a comprehensive review of the most outstanding applications, operation modes, implementation techniques and their potential benefits. Solutions based on sensible and latent heat storage show a higher development status and the best performance, through the use of aerothermal energy in free-cooling ventilation systems, solar energy through small-scale thermal energy storage units, and large-scale underground thermal energy storage systems. For an optimal integration in buildings, they should be combined with heating and cooling generation technologies through smart demand-side management strategies. Regarding thermochemical storage applications for buildings, despite the high energy density of thermochemical storage materials and their reduced heat losses, at the current research stage, the final volume of prototypes is highly penalized by the required auxiliary components. Moreover, recent studies report low-to-moderate efficiency values and poor heat transfer rates after a relatively large number of storage cycles. Therefore, although promising developments are expected in this field, at the present time the greater advances with thermochemical storage processes have been obtained on cooling applications based on solar sorption cycles and large-scale systems.