Is this project an undergraduate, graduate, or faculty project?
Undergraduate
group
What campus are you from?
Daytona Beach
Authors' Class Standing
Maritn Rosales, Senior Jared Williams, Senior Spencer Marinac, Senior John Bai, Senior Gianluca Borgese, Senior
Lead Presenter's Name
Martin Rosales
Faculty Mentor Name
Rafael Rodriguez
Abstract
Transitions to a majority renewable energy-based grid to enable decarbonization require a significant increase in energy storage to supplement the intermittent nature of renewables. Buildings consume a substantial portion of electricity on the grid for thermal loads related to Heating Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC). Due to the high cost of battery storage and the synergy with the primarily thermal loads of buildings, thermal energy storage (TES) is well suited to add additional energy storage to the grid at a low cost. This project will investigate the implementation of thermal storage with heat pumps in renewable energy-powered workspace. Integration will be done with heat pumps due to their growing popularity with the electrification of household heating. This synergy is essential to reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with traditional home heating. The project will design, prototype, and test a small-scale heat pump-TES system on a fully renewable energy-powered test bed. This initial prototype will be used to explore engineering challenges of potential system configurations, examine component behavior through parametric testing, and evaluate potential energy savings enabled by adding TES to residential HVAC systems. Currently, this project has estimated the thermal loads and determined what hardware will be purchased to integrate the system on a renewable energy test bed. Once the preliminary testing and calculations are complete the project will shift into prototyping and testing of the integrated system, as well as presenting the findings.
Did this research project receive funding support from the Office of Undergraduate Research.
Yes, Ignite Grant
The Investigation of Thermal Energy Storage - Heat Pump Integration for Residential Applications
Transitions to a majority renewable energy-based grid to enable decarbonization require a significant increase in energy storage to supplement the intermittent nature of renewables. Buildings consume a substantial portion of electricity on the grid for thermal loads related to Heating Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC). Due to the high cost of battery storage and the synergy with the primarily thermal loads of buildings, thermal energy storage (TES) is well suited to add additional energy storage to the grid at a low cost. This project will investigate the implementation of thermal storage with heat pumps in renewable energy-powered workspace. Integration will be done with heat pumps due to their growing popularity with the electrification of household heating. This synergy is essential to reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with traditional home heating. The project will design, prototype, and test a small-scale heat pump-TES system on a fully renewable energy-powered test bed. This initial prototype will be used to explore engineering challenges of potential system configurations, examine component behavior through parametric testing, and evaluate potential energy savings enabled by adding TES to residential HVAC systems. Currently, this project has estimated the thermal loads and determined what hardware will be purchased to integrate the system on a renewable energy test bed. Once the preliminary testing and calculations are complete the project will shift into prototyping and testing of the integrated system, as well as presenting the findings.