Feasibility study of seasonal solar thermal energy storage in domestic dwellings in the UK

Abstract

Seasonal solar thermal energy storage (SSTES) has been investigated widely to solve the mismatch between majority solar thermal energy in summer and majority heating demand in winter. To study the feasibility of SSTES in domestic dwellings in the UK, eight representative cities including Edinburgh, Newcastle, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, London and Plymouth have been selected in the present paper to study and compare the useful solar heat available on dwelling roofs and the heating demand of the dwellings. The heating demands of space and hot water in domestic dwellings with a range of overall heat loss coefficients (50 W/K, 150 W/K and 250 W/K) in different cities were calculated; then the useful heat obtained by the heat transfer fluid (HTF) flowing through tilted flat-plate solar collectors installed on the dwelling roof was calculated with varied HTF inlet temperature (30 °C, 40 °C and 50 °C). By comparing the available useful heat and heating demands, the critical solar collector area and storage capacity to meet 100% solar fraction have been obtained and discussed; the corresponding critical storage volume sizes using different storage technologies, including sensible heat water storage, latent heat storage and various thermochemical sorption cycles using different storage materials were estimated.