Decarbonising building heating and cooling: Designing a novel, inter-seasonal latent heat storage system

Jada-Tiana Carnie, Yannis Hardalupas and Antonis Sergis

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2024, vol. 189, issue PA

Abstract: The global heating and cooling demands have increased to mitigate the effects of the rise in extreme weather events due to climate change. This has led to an increase in global greenhouse gas emissions due to the use of fossil fuels to meet these demands. The current study evaluates how an alternative low-carbon heating and cooling system may provide thermal comfort in residential buildings, specifically in regions that have a humid temperature oceanic climate-for example, the United Kingdom. To meet the net-zero emissions targets set in the United Kingdom by 2050, greenhouse gas emissions generated from heating in residential buildings must fall by 95 %. The leading decarbonisation strategy proposed by their government requires the electrification of the heating system through the installation of heat pumps. Consequently, the average electricity consumption per household is expected to increase. This will impose considerable pressure on electricity networks to source additional (ideally renewable) capacity, which will ultimately be costly. To circumvent this issue, the current study proposes a novel alternative method of providing nearly zero-carbon space and water heating, that can operate almost independently of the electricity grid. This requires the use of solar energy as the thermal energy source, and a solid-liquid phase change material as an inter-seasonal energy storage medium. A design optimisation study was thereafter carried forward to showcase the capability of such a system for a semi-detached house in London, United Kingdom.

Keywords: Decarbonising heating; Solar energy; Latent heat; Energy storage; Phase change materials; Residential building emissions; Space heating; Water heating (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032123007554
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:189:y:2024:i:pa:s1364032123007554

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2023.113897

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().