GL2012 highlights: latent cold thermal storage: the energetic benefits

In response to German climate protection goals, requiring 80-95 % cuts in CO2 emissions before 2050, Michael Kauffeld presented a paper on “The Energetic Benefit of Latent Cold Thermal Energy Storage” at the 10th IIR Gustav Lorentzen Conference on Natural Fluids.
In response to German climate protection goals, requiring 80-95 % cuts in CO2 emissions before 2050 (compared with 1990), Michael Kauffeld from Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, presented a paper* on “The Energetic Benefit of Latent Cold Thermal Energy Storage” at the 10th IIR Gustav Lorentzen Conference on Natural Fluids.

In order to achieve the climate protection goals, primary energy consumption should decrease by 50% between 2008 and 2050 and the share of renewable energies should increase from the current 17% to 80% in 2050.

As sun and wind are not permanently available, the development of efficient energy storage technologies becomes crucial, in particular in the refrigeration and air-conditioning sector which represents 14% of total electricity consumption in Germany.

Thermal energy storage is but one of several energy storage technologies mentioned.
It can save energy by operating thanks to reduced condensing temperature at night (about 2-3% lower energy consumption per K lower condensing temperature), avoidance of start/stop losses (up to 8% energy savings), avoidance of part load operation, use of off peak electricity and the storage of excess energy from renewable energies.
This offers optimal solutions for many applications and has a great development potential.

* The Energetic Benefit of Latent Cold Thermal Energy Storage, M. Kauffeld, K. Rühling

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