Thermal Energy Storage (TES) for Sustainable Buildings: Addressing the Current Energetic Situation in the EU with TES-Enhanced Buildings

In the last century, global primary energy consumption and related CO2 emissions increased 10 times, and they are still on the rise. The environmental sustainability and the limitation of the energy consumption of buildings are of substantial importance in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the consequences of climate change. The main problem of the next years will be the necessity to find a compromise between energy demand and available energy resources. Europe, despite the lower emissions compared to other regions, will face very hard challenges due to (i) the extreme rise of energy prices that occurred in 2022 and (ii) the necessity to cut CO2 emissions and energy consumption to reach the targets of the European Green Deal for 2050. The technologies and systems able to store thermal energy allow the accumulation of energy when available (e.g., thermal energy from sun) in order to use it when and where necessary, with a consequent reduction of CO2 emissions. The use of insulating materials with TES capability may result in the compensation of energy absorption peaks caused by air conditioning or by space heating with a consequent reduction of energy consumption and related CO2 emissions. The present study, starting from some considerations regarding the energetic problem, greenhouse gas emissions in EU, and used energy source, presents the available energy storage technologies with particular attention to thermal energy storage. Different applications and available commercial technologies are analyzed.