ABSTRACT
Thermal Energy Storage (TES) technologies are becoming important due to their significance in the implementation of renewable energies in buildings and in industry. They also increase the energy efficiency of our systems, thus, contributing to the decrease of CO2 emissions and climate change mitigation. Furthermore, the assessment and the optimization of TES technologies within the environmental and energy systems, in proper applications, bridge the gap and drive the transition towards sustainable goals.
This chapter starts with an Introduction to the TES technologies, in Section 1, and the fundamentals of the Thermal Energy Storage and the cycling process, in Section 2. Then it provides insightful information from the three kinds of TES technologies, namely the sensible, latent and thermo-chemical, in Section 3, 4 and 5 respectively. In each category, the analysis of the critical mechanisms is followed by a description of role of the materials and the interaction of the key properties in various applications. A brief conclusion with the state of the art advances is presented at the end of each section.
Section 6 is dedicated in hybrids applications, where two or more kinds of technologies are combined in order to enhance the output, while Section 7 depicts the role of assessment with regards to the choice of technology. Section 8 concludes with a summary of the findings and investigates further research development.
