Phase change materials(PCM) based multi-stage thermal energy storage(TES) and its application

Future energy systems face significant challenges in resolving global energy trilemma of clean supply, affordability and security. This calls for high penetration of renewables and electrification of heat and transportation. This paper concerns thermal energy storage (TES), which is expected to play an important role in addressing the energy trilemma. It summarizes our recent work on this area, covering TES materials, modules and applications. Our work on TES materials has been on composite materials, including materials formulation and properties characterization and fabrication. Our work on TES devices is covered the material formulation, exchanger developing and TES system building. The experimental study indicates that the thermal recovery efficiency is from 87∼91% for each TES exchanger. A multistage system with graded use of the thermal energy can enhance the thermal recovery efficiency up to 92%.