An Application Review of PCM-based Thermal Storage in Buildings towards Carbon Neutrality: Modeling, Forecasting and Optimal Control with AI

Due to the rising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, global warming is becoming a common problem for humankind. Building decarbonisation is one of the important ways to solve the greenhouse effect. In buildings, both active applications of combining phase change materials (PCM) with thermal storage devices, and passive applications of PCM embedded in building walls are very common. This review paper summarizes and classifies the application of PCM based thermal storage in buildings, mainly investigates the models and optimal control strategies of building energy management systems (BEMS) integrating PCM in green buildings’ applications, and discusses in detail the important role of artificial intelligence (AI) in multi-objective optimization and energy consumption prediction for BEMS, and finally proposes future research directions.