Volume 59

Techno-Economic Analysis of Seasonal Thermal Energy Storage in Local Multi-Energy Systems Boyuan Liu, Jiahao Ma, Zeyang Long, Xueyuan Cui, Yi Wang

Abstract

Local multi-energy systems can accommodate renewable energy while meeting the multi-energy demands of urban end-users. However, a seasonal imbalance exists between renewable energy supply and multi-energy demand. Seasonal thermal energy storage (STES) can efficiently address the seasonal imbalance, but whether or how much to install costly STES remains a question. To this end, this paper conducts a techno-economic analysis of STES. Three Chinese cities in different climate regions are selected for our analysis to find out in what situations STES is cost-effective and to understand why STES performs differently across cities. The result shows that STES is more economical in high-latitude cities with an intense seasonal heating difference. Exceedingly, alteration in STES capacity is attributed to the influence of the heat and cooling load ratio and carbon price.

Keywords seasonal thermal energy storage, techno-economic analysis, multi-energy systems