Performance Analysis of Thermal Energy Storage (TES) Systems based on Sensible and Latent Heat for Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Applications

The research on thermal energy storage (TES) systems carried out by the Department of Mechanical, Chemical and Materials Engineering (DIMCM) of the University of Cagliari focuses on sensible and latent heat. In these last years, several research projects have concerned the characterization of this kind of TES systems by developing mathematical models, for simulating and predicting performance, and implementing laboratory facilities. In particular, the last studies frame mainly in two research projects. The first one concerns the performance evaluation of a sensible heat TES system composed of a tank filled with solid beads (packed bed) crossed by air used as heat transfer fluid (HTF). The second one aims to compare the performance of latent heat TES systems of different geometrical configurations. The present paper reports some results, introduced by a brief description of the technology.