United States. Ingersoll Rand teamed up with the Western Cooling Efficiency Center at the University of California, Davis, on research showing that thermal energy storage can provide significantly greater benefits to utility operators and the electric grid than previously thought.
"This study will help utilities and building operators optimize resource planning and energy use by capturing the total value of thermal energy storage, which uses an energy and ice storage tank to change cooling needs at night, "- said Scott Tew of Ingersoll Rand's Center for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability, who co-sponsored the study.
The research project, Valuation of Thermal Energy Storage for Power Grid Operators, demonstrated that the current method for estimating the power grid impact of thermal energy storage systems does not consider the impact of energy savings that occur during the hottest days. Hot year, which means estimates are much lower than previously thought.
By basing the estimates on a "10-day average baseline," the data drastically underestimates the impact of disconnecting the cooling system from the power grid when outside temperatures are very high and the grid reaches its peak load conditions. The current method underestimates its impact on the electricity grid by up to 77%, between 38% and 57% on average, and by a minimum of 3%. The current method does not adequately take into account changes in the accumulation of loads due to holidays, weekends or extreme events, when thermal energy storage can save the most energy by disconnecting cooling from the grid.
"Energy consumption is projected to grow, but more than 72 gigawatts of power generation capacity have already been retired or are about to retire," said Mark Modera, director of the Western Cooling Efficiency Center at the University of California, Davis. "These factors have created a growing urgency for energy providers to find solutions that allow them to accommodate the growing consumption needs and peak demand requirements in the U.S."
These findings reinforce the sustainable, financial and connected benefits of thermal energy storage and provide a new approach for utilities to consider better estimating the electric grid impact of thermal energy storage as they plan for resources and service costs.
Simulations of entire buildings were used to model the impact of the power grid of thermal energy storage systems. The simulations were performed on three types of buildings using five types of cooling systems in three California climate zones.
The Trane Trace 700 Load Design software simulated each construction model and produced hourly cooling loads for each of the buildings. Cooling loads and ambient weather conditions were used to calculate the power grid impacts that occur when meeting loads using each type of cooling system, compared to using a thermal energy storage system.
Source: Trane.
