Sharif Digital Repository

In this study, a novel idea of storing the latent heat of condensing vapor in solar stills by means of phase change materials (PCMs) as a thermal storage is experimentally investigated. During the daytime, the generated water vapor by the solar energy, is conducted to an external condenser filled with PCM to be condensed. The wasted latent heat is absorbed by PCM and thereby stored. It is worth noting that there is no direct contact between the saline water and the PCM, therefore, the solar energy is not directly stored in the PCM. In the evening, the energy stored in the PCM is transferred as heat to the saline water by heat pipes and enables the desalination process to continue. Several... 

Thermal energy storage (TES) occurs by changing the internal energy of materials in the form of sensible heat, latent heat, and thermo-chemical heat or a combination thereof. Latent heat storage (LHS) by phase change materials (PCMs) has many applications among these storage techniques. Despite the many advantages of LHS, the main problem of LHS systems using PCMs is their low thermal conductivity, which necessitates the combination of heat transfer enhancement techniques. Numerous diverse studies have utilized only one improvement method, while limited research has employed hybrid enhancement techniques. The typical improvement methods, such as adding nanomaterials, using fins, employing... 

Energy storage systems are expected as a near-term solution for renewable energy application in the residential energy hubs. Within this context, this study investigates the feasibility of using storage systems in improving the technical and financial performance of the residential renewable-based energy hub. A new approach has been proposed in this study in which economic dispatch problem has been formulated for an energy hub including both electrical and heat storage system. The proposed approach determines the optimal supply of energy demand and storage system operation to minimise the total energy cost of the hub. The economic benefit of storage system due to energy cost saving and... 

In this study, a latent heat storage unit and built-in condenser were integrated with a solar still. Storage of dissipated latent heat of vapor during the day and using it after sunset prolongs system operation. During the day, the entire solar radiation was consumed to heat the saline water and only the heat coming from the condensation of vapor was stored in the phase change material (PCM). The dissipated heat from the condenser body was transferred to the PCM and stored. Additionally, the existence of PCM on the outer surfaces of the condenser prevented the rise of condenser wall temperature during the day and kept the condenser temperature low. After sunset, the heat stored in the PCM... 

Utilization of heat storage units in solar energy systems can resolve the challenge of fluctuation and uncertainty of the solar energy. Phase change materials (PCMs) are used as the storage media for solar energy storage systems. In this research, a system including of a solar collector and a PCM-based cascaded energy storage unit was numerically investigated. Air was used as the heat transfer fluid (HTF) and three paraffin-based materials (RT50, RT65, and RT80) were used as PCM for the energy storage unit. The investigated system mainly operates between 15 °C and 90 °C and considering different PCMs, the selected PCMs were appropriate. Paraffin-based PCMs also present acceptable thermal... 

The low thermal conductivity of phase change materials (PCM) results in the slowdown in the discharging process of PCM which limits the usability of these materials in the field of Thermal Energy Storage (TES). In this research, an innovative solution is proposed to significantly accelerate the solidification speed, up to two orders of magnitude greater than conventional methods. Using acetone as the intermediate boiling fluid (IBF), the paraffin discharge rate as a phase-change material is significantly improved which is known as super-fast discharge (SFD) in this article. In this method, liquid acetone takes the heat by boiling in liquid paraffin and causes it to solidify. As the liquid... 

Using hybrid energy storage system is a method for increasing the storage capability of solar thermal energy. If multiple energy storage devices with complementary performance characteristics are used together, the resulting system will be a 'Hybrid Energy Storage System'. In other words, a Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS) has several media available for storage at any time. In this way, increase in storable energy is obtained without increasing collectors' area. When there are more than one storage mediums, the system should be able to choose the best medium for storing energy according to the conditions. In the previous works, an optimizer program was used to find the proper medium... 

To more clearly show the abilities of multi-energy carrier systems in managing different energy demands, this paper investigates optimal scheduling of an energy hub in presence of price-based demand response (DR) programs. In this regard, the mathematical model of different energy converters and storage units including combined heat and power (CHP), electrical storage, heat storage and ice storage are extracted. Then, time-of-use (TOU) electrical energy price is set in such a way to reach lower demand in peak hours. Extracting the optimization model of energy scheduling for an energy hub in presence of TOU DR program, the proposed algorithm is implemented on a typical energy hub and the... 

The integration of various energy supplying systems increases the energy efficiency and energy system reliability. Smart microgrids are an ideal area to use multi-carrier energy systems. In this context, this study presents a novel modelling framework for optimal day-ahead scheduling of a networked multi-carrier energy microgrid (NMCEMG) system. The NMCEMG system in this study is composed of heat, gas, and power supply networks. The presented framework has enhanced the multicarrier microgrid modelling against the previous works that modelled the multi-carrier microgrid as an energy hub due to difficulties in the energy flow analysis of heat and gas networks. The proposed framework optimises... 

Large scale solar tower are capable of generating electricity at the costs comparable to those of conventional power plant. Three cost effective parameters in solar tower are diameter of collector, diameter of turbine and height of tower. The characteristic curves of the solar tower mean the relation between cost effective parameters at the specified output power. The solar tower can be equipped with water-filled bags underneath of the collector system for thermal energy storage. This research prepares all of the required relation to setup the mathematical program to find the characteristics curves of solar tower without using the water-filled bags and with using the water-filled bags. The... 

The low thermal conductivity of phase change materials has resulted in prolonged melting and freezing processes (charge and discharge) in these materials. This problem has limited the application of these materials in the field of thermal energy storage. In the present study, the effects of adding Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles at various concentrations as well as applying the magnetic field on the melting process of paraffin as phase change material have been experimentally studied. Thereupon, a cubic chamber in which the left wall applied a constant heat flux was used. At the optimum concentration of nanoparticles (1 mass%), the constant magnetic field with the intensities of 0.01 T and... 

Organic Rankine Cycles (ORCs) are promising approaches for generating power from medium or low temperature heat sources. In this regard, ORCs can be used to indirectly produce power from solar energy. Due to intermittent nature of solar energy, storage unit should be coupled with solar ORCs to improve the output power and operating hours. In this article, studies on solar ORCs integrated with various types of storage units were reviewed; the main findings of such studies were extracted and provided. Based on the findings, several factors such as the temperature and pressure at the inlet of the turbine, as well as the operating condition affect the performance of solar ORCs with thermal... 

Growing interest in the intermittent renewable energy sources may jeopardize the flexibility of power systems. In order to improve the flexibility of modern power systems, the surplus electricity generated by renewable sources can be deployed into several carriers, such as natural gas and heating energy via power-to-gas (PtG) and power-to-heat (PtH) technologies. This paper proposes an optimal daily energy management model of residential energy hubs integrated with power-to-X technologies. The proposed energy hub is incorporated with PtG, PtH, combined heat and power (CHP) facilities, and thermal storage to meet the required electrical, gas, and heating demands. In order to capture the... 

This paper proposes a new framework for home energy management (HEM) in the context of renewable-based residential energy hub using a probabilistic optimization approach. Different energy converters and storages, including combined heat and power, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, a heat storage unit, solar panels, and generic household appliances, are considered in the energy hub. The customer's energy cost is considered as the objective of the HEM optimization problem and different operational limits of the energy hub components are modeled as the constraints. The two-point estimate method is incorporated in this paper to model the uncertainty associated with output power of the rooftop... 

Aquifers are underground porous formations containing water. Confined aquifers are the formations surrounded by two impermeable layers, called cap rocks and bed rocks. These aquifers are suitable for seasonal thermal energy storage. In the present study, a confined aquifer was considered to meet the cooling and heating energy needs of a residential complex located in Tehran, Iran. Three different alternatives were analyzed in this aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES), including: using ATES for cooling alone, for cooling and heating, as a heat pump, and for heating alone, employing flat plate solar energy collectors. A numerical simulation, based on the finite difference method, was carried... 

Effects of the amount and mode of input energy to an active multi-stage solar still were investigated in this work. To control the input energy, an electrical heater controlled by a PLC was utilized to simulate the energy absorbed by solar collectors. The study of the amount of input energy indicated that the freshwater production was a quadratic function of the collector over basin area (CBA) ratio. It was also found that stages 1 to 4 produced about 36%, 26%, 20% and 18% of the overall yield, respectively. Moreover, the effect of employing a thermal energy storage (TES) on the system performance was studied by comparing the mode of feeding energy according to the daily solar radiation... 

The present article deals with the employment of combined heat and power (CHP) micro gas turbines using natural gas and cold thermal energy storage system (CTES) in Tehran (with mild climate), Bandarabas (with hot and humid climate) and Kerman (with semi-hot climate). A micro CHP produces electricity to meet the electrical energy needs of the building, and it is also considered to meet part of the heating, cooling and domestic hot water energy needs through a heat pump and refrigeration system. A detailed study considering the effect of CTES system on the selection of micro gas turbines of a residential building located in Tehran is performed. The results show that since the number of micro... 

Energy storage is one of the most important components of renewable energy systems. Among different methods, thermal energy storage (TES) in forms of sensible or latent has been the subject of many studies in the past decades. The main difficulty in optimal design of storage tanks is associated with low thermal conductivity of the storing (solid or phase change) material. In fact, the distribution of thermal energy from a source to the body of storing material poses a volume to point problem which is the subject of constructal theory. Therefore, the objective of the present paper is to investigate the transient behavior of a rectangular thermal energy storage tank equipped with fin...