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How often do you all see thermal storage systems with chillers? From your experience has it actually helped to save money in the long term? What are some recommended brands?
Member Post, Member Post and 9 others10 Comments-
I have worked on a few of them over the years, but not enough to have a recommendation.
The biggest determining factor would be the payback if it takes 30 years to recover the capital investment then i would say don’t do it, but if it takes 1-2 years, then its basically free money.
Were you thinking of a partial or full load system?
do you know the cost difference between peak vs off peak operation, and what the load profile is looking like?
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I know a guy who probably knows everything about that if you want me to bring him in the group i can
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@the-chiller-guys Thanks! I don’t have a specific application in mind, I’m just seeing it pop up more when I’m looking at engineering drawings. I wanted to gauge everyone’s professional opinions on it because it does seem like a very good idea. But I guess it would really also depend on the difference in price during peak hours vs normal hours to actually be profitable? I also am trying to understand what are it’s limitations and what the downsides are of having a thermal storage system for chiller plants?
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The biggest thing will be available real estate, ROI, and service life.
The places I worked at used screw chillers, and freeze ice banks overnight, and run off of those during peak hours. Seemed to work good for them, and they saved a bunch of money.1 -
What sells thermal storage is time of day electricity pricing, with overnight cost per kWh lower than daytime rates. If you don’t have it in your region, the capital cost is too high, the ROI is too long.
Also, if you are in a region that is majority solar power generation, the time of day pricing often shifts to a higher cost overnight.
The change in night time wet bulb temperatures isn’t sufficient to make the cost of energy savings argument for it.
Lots of energy engineers are enamored with them, but usually the cost of energy savings doesn’t jusrify the capital cost worth the additional spend. I know a lot of these that are less thank 20 years old and are decommissioned because the time of day pricing for electrical consumption went away.
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@james-thornton 100%!
That’s pretty typical, put out an incentive, get people making the switch, then remove the incentive lol1-
@johnnyclemmer
It is kind of funny, kind of not funny, isn’t it?
Time of day pricing only works when there is a difference in demand between day and night, and now a difference in cost of production between night and day. It wasn’t an issue before grid-scale solar.
Since solar has become more prevalent and is relatively cheap (no fuel cost), the paradigm of time of day pricing has kind of been flipped on its head. During limited periods of the day a couple of years back in CA, they were effectively paying their consumers to use electricity.
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@james-thornton
Yes, deffinately.
The unfortunate reality of the world. Happens everywhere around the world.I work in Europe now, and its like the US on steroids when it comes to that stuff.
As long as people obey, they will always do it.
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Everyone, thanks for your input. This really helped me see the reality more. It seems like an amazing idea, but like everything in HVAC and engineering, there’s a give and a take. It also has to be properly used in the right application.
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@shant-o 100%
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