Ice stores

murphaph

Seems to be commercially available now in Germany at least. Not quite sure I get the principle to be honest. Apparently storing 10m³ of ice (which you freeze in the summer using your PV excess) is the equivalent of 100 litres of home heating oil. The energy is stored in the latent heat I think (so when the ice melts it gives off energy to a circulating fluid that feeds the heat pump).

Anyone else looked at this? The goal would be a way of storing energy generated in the sunny summer months for use in the heating period.

Condenser

murphaph wrote: »

Seems to be commercially available now in Germany at least. Not quite sure I get the principle to be honest. Apparently storing 10m³ of ice (which you freeze in the summer using your PV excess) is the equivalent of 100 litres of home heating oil. The energy is stored in the latent heat I think (so when the ice melts it gives off energy to a circulating fluid that feeds the heat pump).

Anyone else looked at this? The goal would be a way of storing energy generated in the sunny summer months for use in the heating period.

You'd want a serious amount of ice to heat your house at that conversion rate and given the fact that the only way you can extract the energy is by passing a colder medium through the ice then energy capture won't be very efficient. Far simpler and more efficient to use a heat pump and borehole.
With this method you have to expend energy putting the energy in and retrieving it.

Condenser

Condenser wrote: »

With this method you have to expend energy putting the energy in and retrieving it.

That and every other one energy source.

In theory the peltier effect used to freeze the ice could be used as a rather inefficient thermoelectric generator in reverse. I gave up on thermoelectric after speculating small scale it was working out about > €40 per watt and all sorts of logistical horrors. BMW are building cars with thermopiles instead of alternators. It's harnessing waste heat but it's more the difference in temperature to module sides that works than the severity of the extreme.

Thermodynamics are a nightmare to fathom.

[Edit]: Large Scale Ice Battery

80% efficient, that's riding alongside the lead acid battery and pumped storage.

Ging Ging

Check this out this study of DkIT'S ice storage
http://arrow.dit.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=sdar