Author(s)

MAHMOUD HAGGAG, AHMED HASSAN, USMAN MASOOD, MOHAMMAD LAGHARI

Abstract

The rising demand for cooling systems to maintain thermal comfort in buildings, intensified by extreme weather events linked to climate change, has substantially increased global greenhouse gas emissions. This trend is largely driven by the dependence on fossil fuel-based energy sources to power air conditioning and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. Enhancing the energy efficiency of these systems presents a promising solution, offering the potential to reduce energy consumption, enable peak load shaving and promote sustainable building practices. This study introduces an innovative approach to improving building energy performance by integrating a thermal energy storage (TES) unit with a chilled-water cooling system. The TES unit employs RT-42 phase change material (PCM) to store excess cooling energy during off-peak hours for use during peak demand, thus facilitating significant energy savings and load reduction. Unlike strategies that depend on ambient weather conditions, this system remains effective even in extremely hot climates, where PCM solidification is typically challenging. In this work, a large-scale TES unit, 60 cm in diameter and 80 cm in height, featuring a helical pipe design, has been modelled using ANSYS Fluent. The model investigates the solidification behaviour of RT-42, using the building’s return water as the inlet source.

Keywords

thermal energy storage (TES), phase change materials (PCM), RT-42, chilled water-cooling systems, energy efficiency, sustainable buildings, solidification modelling, hot climate