Methods of Thermal Energy Storage by Using Smart Heat Pumps

Abstract To address energy problems in thermodynamic installations, the authors of the paper propose a working methodology in which the determining role of the exergetic aspects of the processes is especially emphasized. One of these energy problems, addressed in many papers in recent years, is of particular importance in the fight to reduce chemical and thermal pollution of the environment: the problem of storing excess energy and energy from renewable or residual sources. Approaching this issue as well from this point of view, the authors propose a series of solutions by which they seek to use the most of the exergy extracted from the available energy sources. The solutions proposed here are based on the use of an own invention, the isothermalizer , a particularly powerful tool, able to bring highly effective solutions to many of the problems that concern researchers determined to create a cleaner planet. Designers and users of thermodynamic systems now have the possibility of an initial choice and subsequent changes (with the change of external conditions), of their energy and exergetic efficiency, as well as the possibility of calculating the material and energy costs necessary to achieve the proposed objective. In any gas compression/expansion problem, the energy efficiency is established precisely, by choosing the isothermal speed of the process (so of the isothermal temperature), and the power density, by choosing the total surface of the thermal sponge, the flow rate and the mode of distribution of the cooling agent. As the isothermalizer is equipped with a processor that controls and modifies the isothermal speed in such a way that the exergy consumption is optimized, the energy storage processes become processes of extracting thermal energy from a tank and transferring it to another tank, a process accompanied by consumption/supply of mechanical energy.