Study on Office Building Cooling System with Water-Glycol Thermal Energy Storage

It is an inevitable consequence of an increase in the level of electricity consumption that costs will increase by 40%. This is particularly the case in the context of office buildings, where the cooling systems are in use. This underscores the vital necessity for innovations in the domain of efficient and sustainable energy management. Thermal energy storage technology plays a pivotal role in influencing the manner in which electricity is utilized for the purposes of building air conditioning. In essence, it permits the relocation of the load from periods of peak electricity demand to periods of lower demand, thereby reducing the overall costs associated with electricity usage. It is therefore evident that the cooling capacity and storage tank are of significant importance in this system. The aim of this research is to design a thermal energy storage system that utilizes a mixture of water and ethylene glycol ice slurry as a cooling medium. The cooling load of a building serves as the basis for determining the requisite quantity of ice slurry. A heat balance analysis is presented to obtain the capacity of the cooling media. The ice slurry produced has a storage capacity of 400 m3, and a comparison of thermal energy storage strategy modes is presented. The implementation of a thermal energy storage system integrated with ice slurry as a cooling medium underscores the necessity for further research to optimize the efficiency and sustainability of this technology.