Design and Optimization of Seasonal Thermal Energy Storage System for a Small Building

The solar seasonal heat storage system can store summer heat for winter heating and provide domestic hot water for residential buildings, which can effectively solve the seasonal mismatch between supply and demand of solar energy. At present, most of the seasonal heat storage projects are community-scale systems, and there is a lack of system design research on small single-building scale. In fact, the distributed heat storage system of a single house has an advantage because it reduces heat loss from long-distance transportation. Based on the characteristics of hot summer and cold winter climate, a two-way heating and hot water supply system with long-term and short-term heat storage is designed for civil buildings with a building area of about 150 m2. Energy balance analysis and system year-round simulation are carried out, and the influencing factors of system energy efficiency are analyzed. The results show that more than 90% of solar energy can be guaranteed through the rational configuration of the system. Selecting 35 m2 heat collecting area and 50 m3 seasonal water storage tank volume according to the optimization results, 92.3% solar energy guarantee rate is expected to be achieved, which provides reference for engineering applications in building energy saving and HVAC heat storage. © 2024 Science Press. All rights reserved.