APPLICATION OF PCM FOR HEATING AND COOLING IN BUILDINGS

Abstract

Research for the application of PCM in buildings has been focused in recent years on three fields. The first one is the reduction of temperature swings of lightweight buildings by increasing their thermal mass. This is done by incorporation of PCM into building materials. The second one is the cooling of buildings through intermediate storage of cold from the night or other cheap cold sources. If the cold is for free, as with cold from night air, this is also called free cooling and very promising with respect to energy saving. A third field of application is for heat storage in space heating systems. Here the main advantage is a reduction of storage volume by a factor of three or more. This section describes the basic strategies for different systems for heating and cooling of buildings as well as the state of the art in R&D.