ABSTRACT
Due to the widespread usage of non-renewable energy sources such as coal, natural gas, fossil fuels, etc., there is a growing threat of pollution and global warming leading to a catastrophic effect on the global environment and humankind. The world is looking forward to harnessing clean and green energy sources such as sunlight, which is a prominent and easily available energy resource. However, intermittent availability of sunlight and usage of solar energy during off-sunlight hours have been a challenge until now. Thermal energy storage (TES) systems have been designed in various forms such as specific heat– and latent heat–based systems to address this challenge. By using phase change materials (PCMs), TES has been exploited extensively in applications such as solar cooking for evening cooking and solar heating, etc. This chapter details different kinds of TES systems and their classifications established by the research work carried out until now.
