Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-2023

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Energy Science and Engineering

Major Professor

Kyle R. Gluesenkamp

Committee Members

David J. Keffer, William A. Miller, Hongyu N. Zhou

Abstract

This work presents a novel thermal energy storage (TES) integrated with existing residential heat pump (HP). The research focuses on controls and configuration for energy, demand, cost and carbon emissions savings for residential buildings’ energy consumption. This work will be significant in developing a framework especially for reduced energy demand and carbon emissions associated with space heating and cooling in residential buildings. Since buildings account for about 40% primary energy consumption in U.S. and half of that is associated with HP.

An existing air source HP in integrated with a phase change material (PCM) based TES via active configuration where HP mediates the heat transfer. In this novel configuration, TES is indirectly coupled to the building and behaves as heat sink or source, only providing heating or cooling via HP equipment. We used a single TES for both heating and cooling applications and performed a parametric analysis to determine the best phase change temperature and storage capacity for maximum performance. The performance parameters are energy savings, demand savings, and cost savings, achieved by shifting the peak load and using rule-based control strategies.

There are very few studies available in literature on heat pump integrated with thermal energy storage (HP-TES) and no standards are available to compare them. There’s no complete experimental system found in literature that addresses controls, configurations, and performance of HP-TES altogether. Furthermore, no simulation works have analyzed and compared different climate zones for HP-TES performance.

We address this gap by contributing a simulation-based system and validating it experimentally for a single-family residential building. The simulation compares different climate zones in U.S. to determine the impact of configuration and controls on performance.

Commercializing such HP-TES will have a broader impact on research community and this work aligns with DOE’s goals of decarbonizing and reducing demand by 2030. Flexible installation of HP-TES allows use of existing HP equipment for controls with minimal space footprint, reducing installation and consumer cost that will appeal to residential homeowners.

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