Stratified thermal storage in residential solar energy applications

Technical Report · Thu Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 1978

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6070534· OSTI ID:6070534

Sharp, M. K.; Loehrke, R. I.

The benefits of thermal stratification in sensible heat storage were investigated for several residential solar applications. The operation of space heating, air conditioning and water heating systems with water storage was simulated on a computer. The performance of comparable systems with mixed and stratified storage was determined in terms of the fraction of the total load supplied by solar energy. The effects of design parameters such as collector efficiency, storage volume, tank geometry, etc., on the relative advantage of stratified over well-mixed storage were assessed. The results show that significant improvements in system performance (5 to 15%) may be realized if stratification can be maintained in the storage tank. The magnitude of the improvement is greatest and the sensitivity to design variables is smallest in the service hot water application. The results also show that the set of design parameters which describes the optimum system is likely to be substantially different for a system employing stratified storage than for a mixed storage system. In both the water heating and space heating applications collector flowrates lower than currently suggested for mixed storage systems were found to yield optimum performance for a system with stratified storage.

• Research Organization: Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins (USA). Solar Energy Applications Lab.
• OSTI ID: 6070534
• Report Number(s): COO-4523-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
142000* -- Solar Energy-- Heat Storage-- (1980-)
25 ENERGY STORAGE
250600 -- Energy Storage-- Thermal
AIR CONDITIONING
DESIGN
ENERGY STORAGE
FLOW RATE
HEAT STORAGE
HEATING
OPERATION
OPTIMIZATION
PERFORMANCE
SENSIBLE HEAT STORAGE
SIMULATION
SOLAR AIR CONDITIONING
SOLAR HEATING
SOLAR SPACE HEATING
SOLAR WATER HEATING
SPACE HEATING
STORAGE
STRATIFICATION