Benefits of Thermal Energy Storage Option Combined With CHP System PCM V.S HOT WATER For CHP

Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 1 (2013) 312
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Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments

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Original Research Article
Benets of thermal energy storage option combined with CHP system

for different commercial building types
Amanda D. Smith a, Pedro J. Mago a,, Nelson Fumo b
a
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mississippi State University, USA

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Texas at Tyler, USA
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 29 August 2012
Revised 16 October 2012
Accepted 5 November 2012
Keywords:
CHP systems
Thermal energy storage
Building energy
Building emissions
a b s t r a c t
A combined heat and power (CHP) system is investigated with and without a thermal energy storage
option for eight different commercial building types located in Chicago, IL. The buildings electrical and
thermal loads are simulated on an hourly basis over one year and a CHP system operating at a constant
base load is modeled. The CHP system alone is compared with a CHP system which incorporates thermal
storage in varying amounts. In each case, the CHP system reduces operational cost, primary energy consumption (PEC), and carbon dioxide emissions (CDE) with respect to the reference case without a CHP
system. For six of the eight buildings, adding thermal storage provides further reductions in operational
cost, PEC, and CDE. More thermal increases these benets. However, the size of the supplemental boiler
required by the building to satisfy the thermal load is not reduced except in the case of the large hotel. In
addition, the sizing of the CHP systems power generation unit is not signicantly affected by the addition
of thermal storage. Buildings which require higher ratios of power to heat will be less likely to benet
from the addition of thermal storage to a CHP system.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Combined heat and power (CHP) systems can potentially reduce
operational cost, emissions, and primary energy consumption associated with power production by capturing the waste heat associated with production and using it to provide space heating or hot
water to a building, thereby making better use of the fuel energy
[1]. One major concern for implementing CHP systems is a mismatch between the amount of electricity and heat provided by
the CHP system and the amount of electrical energy and thermal
energy required by the building it serves [2]. Often this is due to a
low power-to-heat ratio (a ratio of the electric load to the thermal
load) demanded by the building [3], so that the excess heat produced by the CHP system may not be useful to the building it serves.
Often, a CHP system operates most efciently at a constant
load; however, the electrical and thermal energy needs of a commercial building are not constant. If the heat demanded by the
building varies over time, this problem may be alleviated when
thermal energy storage (TS) is available. This will allow the system
to capture thermal energy when it is not being used by the building
and then deliver it when the building needs more thermal energy
than the CHP system provides. This can allow the CHP system to
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mago@me.msstate.edu (P.J. Mago).
2213-1388/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2012.11.001
operate more protably and for longer periods of time [4]. Thermal
energy storage systems may also be integrated with district heating networks [5,6] and used to store energy on a seasonal basis
[7] in order to reduce cost, primary energy, and emissions.
A properly designed TS system will minimize energy losses and
result in reduced energy consumption [8,9], and may result in signicant carbon dioxide emissions (CDE) reduction [4]. Verda and
Colella [9] found that a TS system could signicantly reduce the
size of the additional boiler needed to meet the thermal energy demand of a district heating system in Turin, Italy, with a sufciently
large TS tank (1000 m3 of storage volume).
The economic benet, or perceived potential for cost reduction,
associated with any commercial CHP project is a key factor which
determines whether CHP will be adopted [10]. Bianchi et al. [11]
found in an economic analysis that for residential buildings located
in Italy, a TS system increased the maximum allowable cost for all
CHP systems studied, along with primary energy savings ranging
from 15% to 45%, depending on the particular CHP technology.
The cost analysis presented in this paper only includes cost reductions caused by reduced fuel input to the buildings boiler. A comprehensive analysis of the potential for TS to save money in a
given situation should include the additional capital cost associated
with installing the device and the operation and maintenance costs
associated with it. For a water tank, a commonly used storage material for hot thermal energy storage, operation and maintenance
costs are usually minimal [12].
A.D. Smith et al. / Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 1 (2013) 312
Nomenclature
CDE
CDECHP
CDEref
CFCDE,e
CFCDE,f
CFPEC,e
CFPEC,f
CHP
CHP-TS
CostCHP
Coste
Costf
Costref
Egrid
Epgu
Ereq
Fboiler
Fboiler,ref
Fpgu
HRS
PEC
carbon dioxide emissions

carbon dioxide emissions of the building with a CHP
system
carbon dioxide emissions of the reference case
carbon dioxide emissions conversion factor for electricity
carbon dioxide emissions conversion factor for natural
gas
primary energy conversion factor for electricity
primary energy conversion factor for natural gas
combined heat and power
combined heat and power with thermal storage option
operational cost associated with the CHP system
cost of purchased electricity
cost of natural gas
operational cost associated with the reference case
electrical energy purchased from the grid to meet the
buildings Ereq
electrical energy provided to the building by the PGU in
an hour
electrical energy required by the building in an hour
fuel consumed by boiler in the CHP system to meet
Qboiler
fuel consumed by the boiler in the conventional system
to meet Qreq
fuel used by the PGU in an hour
heat recovery system
primary energy consumption
Many types of thermal energy storage are available which may

store heat as sensible or latent energy [13,14]. State of the art
latent TES technology incorporates phase change materials into
the energy storage devices [15]. The thermal capacity of the TS device rather than the material in the tank is specied so that the
analysis will indicate the potential for any type of hot thermal storage system. The details of the TS system should be selected based
on the necessary storage period and economic concerns such as
projected energy prices, acceptable payback period, and any costs
associated with CO2 emissions [13,16], and the appropriate size
will also depend on the characteristics of the thermal storage
material and the materials used for the TS equipment [17].
This paper investigates the benets of thermal energy storage
option combined with the CHP system for eight different commercial building types located in Chicago, IL. Chicago is located in a
cold climate region (between 5400 and 9000 heating degree days
on a 65 F basis) [18]. The buildings were modeled using Energy
Plus simulation software [19] and the building models are representative prototype buildings developed by the Department of Energy (DOE) [20]. A CHP system size that is benecial to the building
in terms of reducing operational cost, PEC, and CDE is determined.
A variety of commercial building types were modeled in order to
examine whether TS was more benecial to certain types of buildings based on their load proles. The amount of TS that is benecial
to the particular building is investigated, along with the effects of
the TS option on cost, PEC, CDE, and optimal boiler size and power
generation unit (PGU).
PECCHP
primary energy consumption of the building with a CHP

system
PECref
primary energy consumption of the reference case
PGU
power generation unit
PHR
power-to-heat ratio
PHRb
PHR required by the building to meet its energy needs
thermal energy required from a boiler with the CHP sysQboiler
tem operating
Qmax
maximum thermal energy required by the building in
an hour
Qrec
thermal energy recovered by the PGU in an hour
Qreq
thermal energy required by the building in an hour
Qstorage-new total thermal energy stored in TS at the end of the
current time step
Qstorage-old
total thermal energy stored in TS at the end of the previous time step
QTS
thermal energy transferred from TS to the buildings
heating system in an hour
Rh
fraction of the thermal load supplied by the CHP system
TS
thermal energy storage
TScap
thermal storage capacity
gboiler
efciency of the boiler used in the reference case
gpgu
efciency of the PGU
grec
efciency of the HRS
n
factor to account for energy losses before HRS
Building models
Eight commercial building types with varying characteristics
were selected for the investigation using models developed by
the US DOE Building Technologies Program [20], representing typical US buildings constructed after 1980. The DOE developed a series of model buildings based on Commercial Building Energy
Consumption Surveys in order to represent the US commercial
building stock [20]. The building types selected are present
throughout the US and the models vary in terms of size, purpose,
and occupancy, and therefore in terms of their energy requirements. More information about these hypothetical buildings is
provided in Table 1.
The reference building les [21] are provided as input for
Energy Plus [19] and the buildings performance is simulated with
a time step of 15 min. Hawkes and Leach [22] showed that 5 min
time steps for energy demand data were necessary for accurately
analyzing small residential CHP systems, but for the buildings analyzed here, simulations using smaller time steps did not produce
signicantly different results for hourly energy demands. The results of the simulation are used to provide each buildings hourly
demand for electricity and heat over one year. Next, the operational cost, primary energy consumption, and CDE associated with
purchasing electricity from the grid and providing heat with an
auxiliary boiler are computed for the reference case, for the CHP
system, and for the CHP system with a thermal store (CHP-TS).
CHP system model

Methodology
This section presents the methodology used to evaluate the
benets of thermal energy storage in combination with a CHP system for different commercial building types.
The CHP system considered for each building is shown in Fig. 1.

Electricity is generated by a prime mover, which for this study is
taken to be a PGU fueled by natural gas. Electricity in the amount
of Epgu is provided to the building, where Epgu is given by:
Table 1
Building model basic characteristics by building type [16].
Building type
Area (m2)
Volume (m3)
Occupancya (m2/person)
Full service restaurant

Hospital
Large hotel
Outpatient building
Primary school
Small hotel
Small ofce
Supermarket
511
2595
11,345
3804
6871
4014
511
4181
1558
88,863
35,185
11,932
27,484
13,204
2279
25,486
1.4
18.6
[1.5 guests/room, 65% occupancy rate]
4.7
4
[1.5 guests/room, 65% occupancy rate]
18.6
11.6
a
Occupancy is provided for the main area or the most common type of room for a given building type. Exact occupancies used in simulation vary with time/location and
may be found in the Energy Plus input le. See Deru et al. [20, p. 18] for occupancy information.
Rh;CHP 1 otherwise
4b
where Qreq is the thermal energy required by the building. This includes thermal energy for space heating and hot water needs.
The CHP system is assumed to operate at a constant baseload.
This allows the PGU to operate with a high, constant efciency
[23], maximizing its capacity without load-following operation
[10]. Table 2 presents the constant values which are used for the
system parameters in the above equations.
If Epgu does not meet the buildings electricity requirement, Ereq,
then additional electricity is purchased from the grid, Egrid. Some of
the heat produced by the PGU is then captured by the heat recovery system (HRS) and thermal energy, Qrec, is delivered to the
building. If the heat produced exceeds Qreq, then excess heat is produced, Qexcess. If Qrec is less than Qreq, additional heat is provided by
a supplemental boiler, Qboiler.
Q boiler Q req Q rec
if Q rec < Q req
Q boiler 0 otherwise
Fig. 1. CHP system schematic.
Epgu PGUsize 1 h 3:6 106
with PGUsize given in kW and Epgu given in J.

The fuel energy used by the PGU in an hour is given by:
F pgu
Epgu
where gpgu is the electric efciency of the PGU. This is normally estimated based on the manufacturers performance data as the ratio of
power generation and rate of fuel consumption.
The heat recovered by the CHP system in an hour is given by [1]:
Q rec F pgu Epgu ngrec
where n accounts for energy losses before the heat recovery system,
and grec is the thermal efciency of the heat recovery system.
The fraction of the thermal demand that is satised by the CHP
system [1] is given by:
Rh;CHP
Q rec
Q req
if Q rec 6 Q req
4a
Table 2
CHP system parameters.
Parameter
Value
gpgu
0.3
0.95
0.8
grec
5b
Next, the CHP system is investigated with a thermal storage option as shown in Fig. 2. In this situation, when the CHP system produces excess heat, it may be stored in the TS device until the device
reaches its capacity. The capacity of the device is varied in the analysis with respect to the average thermal load of the building under
consideration in order to investigate the effect of different TS device sizes on the potential benets resulting from adding TS to
the CHP system.
gpgu
5a
Fig. 2. CHP-TS system schematic.
When the heat produced is insufcient to meet Qreq, the stored

thermal energy may be used to meet the buildings energy needs,
whether for space heating or hot water purposes. The boiler is only
used if the amount of thermal energy required is greater than the
amount produced by the CHP and the amount stored in the TS device combined. It is assumed that the TS system does not experience thermal losses and that it can deliver the thermal energy as
needed.
The system is modeled to investigate whether CHP-TS provides
additional cost, PEC, and CDE reductions over the use of a CHP system alone, and whether increasing the size of the TS device provides additional benets. Then it is considered whether CHP-TS
can reduce the required boiler size.
Economic analysis
To provide a baseline for comparison, the operating cost of the
reference case where no CHP system is present is calculated as
Costref Ereq Coste F boiler;ref Costf
where Ereq represents the electricity required by the building, Coste

is the cost of electricity purchased from the grid, Fboiler,ref is the fuel
energy consumed by the boiler and Costf is the cost of the fuel based
on energy content. The fuel energy consumed by the boiler can be
determined as
F boiler;ref
Q req
gboiler;ref
where gboiler,ref represents the efciency of the boiler used in the

conventional system.
Next, the cost to operate the CHP system is calculated as
CostCHP Egrid Coste F pgu F boiler Costf
where Egrid represents any additional electricity that must be purchased from the grid (Ereq Epgu), Fpgu is the fuel energy consumed
by the PGU, and Fboiler is the fuel energy consumed by the boiler of
the CHP system and it can be calculated as
F boiler
Q boiler
gboiler
where Qboiler is given by Eq. (5).

Next, the cost to operate the CHP system with thermal storage
(CHP-TS) is calculated as in Eq. (8). However, Qboiler may be reduced based on the contribution from the TS device. The amount
of thermal energy stored in the TS device at the end of each time
step is calculated. The storage device is considered to be discharged (no thermal energy stored) at the beginning of the simulation. If the amount of heat recovered from the CHP system is
greater than the heat required by the building (Qrec > Qreq), then
thermal energy will be stored up to the thermal capacity, TScap,
of the device, where TScap represents the maximum thermal energy
that can be stored in the TS device:
Q storage-new Q storage-old Q rec Q req
if Q storage-old Q rec
Q req
10a
otherwise
10b
If the amount of heat recovered from the CHP system is less

than the heat required by the building (Qrec < Qreq), then thermal
energy will be taken from the TS device as long as thermal energy
is available:
Q storage-new Q storage-old Q rec Q req

P Q rec Q req
11b
If the amount of heat recovered from the CHP system is the

same as the heat required by the building (Qrec = Qreq), then no
thermal energy will be transferred to or from the TS device:
Q storage-new Q storage-old
12
Equations (10) through (12) do not take into account any heat
losses associated with the TS device and there are no limitations
placed on the amount of heat which can be transferred in a given
time period. In an actual system, the limitations of the heat
exchangers must be considered, and while a hot thermal storage
tank must be well-insulated [12], thermal dissipation must be taken into account if a TS device is considered for a specic device
serving a given building. Different types of TS will have differing
amounts of thermal losses, and these expressions should be obtained or approximated in order to optimize a specic device in a
specic situation [24].
The amount of heat transferred from TS to the building in a time
step, QTS, is:
Q TS Q storage-old Q storage-new
if Q storage-old Q storage-new
>0
13a
Q TS 0 otherwise
13b
The fraction of the thermal demand that is satised by the CHP

system with TS is:
Rh;CHPTS
Q rec Q TS
Q req
if Q rec Q TS 6 Q req
Rh;CHPTS 1 otherwise
14a
14b
The heat provided from the supplemental boiler is now:
Q boiler Q req Q rec Q TS
if Q req Q rec Q TS > 0
Q boiler 0 otherwise
15a
15b
The fuel energy consumed by the boiler can be calculated using

Eq. (9) again, and then the cost to operate the CHP system and the
cost to operate the CHP-TS system are compared with the cost of
the reference case. It is worth noting that the operating cost analysis does not include capital costs or any costs other than supplying the necessary fuel for the PGU and the boiler and purchasing
electricity from the grid. The addition of TS to a CHP system will
require additional capital and maintenance expenses, which must
be weighed against any possible reductions in the size requirement
of the supplemental boiler along with any possible reductions in
operating costs for the system as a result of TS installation. It is also
important to note that uncertainty in the natural gas price, especially, as well as the electricity price will affect the operational cost
estimate for any case study [25].
Energy analysis
6 TScap
Q storage-new TScap
Q storage-new 0 otherwise
if Q storage-old
11a
The primary energy consumption (PEC) of the reference case is

calculated as
PECref Ereq CFPEC;e F boiler;ref CFPEC;f
16
where CFPEC,e is the primary energy conversion factor for purchased

electricity and CFPEC,f is the primary energy conversion factor for
fuel.
Next, the PEC of the CHP system is calculated.
PECCHP Egrid CFPEC;e F pgu F boiler CFPEC;f
17
where Fboiler is determined according to Eqs. (5) and (9) for CHP and
Eqs. (9) and (15) for CHP-TS.
Finally, the PEC of the CHP system and the PEC of the CHP-TS
system are compared with the PEC of the reference case.
Emissions analysis
The carbon dioxide emissions (CDE) of the reference case are
calculated.
CDEref Ereq CDEe F boiler;ref CDEf
18
where CDEe is the CDE factor for purchased electricity and CDEf is
the CDE factor for natural gas.
Next, the CDE of the CHP system is calculated.
CDECHP Egrid CDEe F pgu F boiler CDEf
19
where Fboiler is again determined according to Eqs. (5) and (9) for
CHP and Eqs. (9) and (15) for CHP-TS.
Finally, the CDE of the CHP system and the CDE of the CHP-TS
system are compared with the CDE of the reference case.
Results
The thermal and electric requirements, Qreq and Ereq, respectively, need to be known to apply the methodology presented in
Methodology section. These two parameters are determined from
the results of the Energy Plus simulation. They will vary from timestep to timestep and will vary among the different building types.
The total yearly electrical and thermal energy requirements as well
as the power-to-heat ratio for each of the evaluated buildings are
presented in Table 3. In addition, the cost of electricity and natural
gas as well as primary energy and emission conversion factors for
electricity and natural gas have to be known. The following values
were used in this investigation: The cost of electricity and the cost
of natural gas for Chicago are, respectively, $0.0867/kW h [26] and
$8.21/MMBtu ($0.028/kW h) [27] as of November 2011. The conversion factors CFPEC,e and CFPEC,f are 3.546 and 1.092, respectively
[19]. The conversion factors CDEe and CDEf are 0.0007689 ton/
kW h [28] and 0.0001996 ton/kW h [29], respectively.
reduce cost, PEC, and CDE with respect to the reference case.
Therefore, the PGU size was held at 50% of Eave in all cases to provide consistency in the comparison among building types. Table 4
presents the average hourly electrical demand, the PGU size which
provides 50% of this amount of energy over an hour, and the thermal energy which can be recovered from this PGU in one hour given the assumed efciencies in Table 2.
TS and boiler sizing analysis
The CHP and CHP-TS systems were simulated using the PGU
sizes given in Table 4 which were determined to be potentially
benecial by the previous calculations. The size of the TS device
was varied according to the maximum thermal energy required
by the building in one hour, Qmax. TS sizes ranging from 0.25Qmax
to Qmax were simulated, and the cost, PEC, and CDE were calculated. This provides a range of TS sizes over which, for most of
the buildings studied, the cost, PEC, and CDE reductions changed
based on the size of the TS system. The No TS case represents a
CHP system without TS available and is presented for all results
along with the varying TS sizes for reference. Table 5 presents
the storage capacities that were evaluated. If the storage device
was found to provide additional benets in terms of cost, PEC, or
CDE reduction, each value for TScap was examined in order to
determine whether it could reduce the size of the boiler needed
to satisfy the thermal load of the building. In other words, because
the TS device can provide some of the heating load, if the maximum thermal energy required from the boiler is reduced due to
the addition of TS, then the boiler size necessary to meet the buildings thermal needs may become smaller.
Building analysis
In order to investigate the benets of TS combined with a CHP

system, it is important to determine that the CHP system can
potentially benet the building in terms of cost, PEC, and CDE.
Since the sale of excess electricity is not available in all US locations, this option is not considered in this investigation. To dene
the size of the PGU to be used in the analyses, the size of the
PGU was varied from a small size corresponding to half of the minimum hourly electricity required by the building to a large size
which would produce twice the average hourly electricity required
by the building. For all evaluated buildings, it was found that a PGU
size corresponding to half the average hourly electricity would

Fig. 3 presents the reductions in cost, PEC, and CDE with respect
to the reference case obtained with a CHP system and CHP-TS systems with varying thermal storage capacities for the restaurant
building. The restaurant has the smallest PHRb over the year compared with the other seven buildings studied, with a value of 0.80.
This indicates that more of the energy required by the building is in
the form of thermal energy. For this case, the CHP-TS system does
reduce cost, PEC, and CDE more than a CHP system alone. Therefore, results conrm that it is generally benecial to have a high
relative thermal demand for the operation of the CHP and the
CHP-TS systems to be favorable in terms of cost, PEC, and CDE.
The fraction of the thermal load satised by the CHP system is,
on average, 0.743. As the size of the TS device increases, the reductions on cost, PEC, and CDE become more favorable. However, once
TScap is about 75% of Qmax, the gains resulting from additional thermal storage capacity are very small, as illustrated in Fig. 4. This gure shows the primary energy which is saved by using a CHP-TS
system versus the reference case over a wide range of TScap.
Although each building has a unique curve, and the magnitude of
Table 3
Yearly energy requirements [15] and power-to-heat ratios by building type.
Table 4
PGU sizing based on average electrical demand of the building.
PGU sizing analysis
Building type
Ereq (GJ)
Qreq (GJ)
PHRb
Building type
Eave (MJ)
PGU size (kW)
Qrec (MJ)

Hospital
Large hotel
Outpatient building
Primary school
Small hotel
Small ofce
Supermarket
1205
42,674
16,049
5708
3771
2748
312
7295
1512
17,681
13,724
4682
2873
1160
138
4877
0.80
2.41
1.17
1.22
1.31
2.37
2.27
1.50

Hospital
Large hotel
Outpatient building
Primary school
Small hotel
Small ofce
Supermarket
138
4871
1832
652
431
314
36
833
19
675
255
90
60
44
5
115
1213
4309
1628
575
383
132
32
557
Table 5
Sizing of thermal store based on maximum thermal demand of the building.
Building type
TScap = 0.25Qmax (kW h)
TScap = Qmax (kW h)

Hospital
Large hotel
Outpatient building
Primary school
Small hotel
Small ofce
Supermarket
52.5
172
340
57
232
19
12.5
301
105
344
680
114
464
38
25
602
157.5
516
1020
171
696
57
37.5
903
210
688
1360
228
928
76
50
1204
Fig. 3. Variation of Cost, PEC, and CDE from reference case for CHP without TS and CHP-TS with varying TScap for a full service restaurant.
an impact on the economic, energetic, and environmental analysis.

Fig. 6 illustrates that the CHP-TS system does not reduce cost, PEC,
and CDE more than a CHP system alone. The reduction from the
reference case differs by less than 1% between the CHP system
and any of the CHP-TS systems.
The Rh,CHP and Rh,CHP-TS values are both 0.998 (Fig. 5), indicating
that the CHP system alone meets almost all of the buildings thermal load, and adding TS will not provide additional benets. The
required boiler size for each case also remains the same, at
687 kW h, indicating that the maximum hourly thermal load
which must be met by the boiler is not reduced by the addition
of TS. Therefore, for this type of building the addition of TS to the
CHP system does not add any benets.
Fig. 4. Primary energy savings over the reference case with varying TScap for a full
service restaurant with CHP and CHP-TS.
primary energy saved is different for each building, all building

types studied have little or no improvement in energy savings
when TScap is increased past Qmax.
The fraction of the thermal load satised by the CHP system
with the TS size corresponding to 100% of Qmax is, on average,
0.786. Therefore, the maximum improvement shown in Rh value
from Rh,CHP to Rh,CHP-TS is 5.7%. The Rh values for CHP and CHP-TS
are presented in Fig. 5. For this case, the required boiler size for
each case remains the same, at 211 kW h, indicating that the maximum hourly thermal load which must be met by the boiler is not
reduced by the addition of TS.
Hospital
to the reference case obtained with a CHP system and CHP-TS systems with varying thermal storage capacities for the hospital
building. The hospital has the largest PHRb over the year compared
with the other buildings, with a value of 2.41. This indicates that
the building requires more than twice as much electrical energy
as thermal energy. Therefore, CHP-TS has less opportunity to make
Large hotel
to the reference case obtained with a CHP system and CHP-TS systems with varying thermal storage capacities for the large hotel
building. As can be seen in Fig. 5, the CHP-TS system does reduce
cost, PEC, and CDE more than CHP alone. As the size of the TS device increases, these reductions become more favorable. Similar to
the full service restaurant, once TScap is about 75% of Qmax, the
gains resulting from additional thermal storage capacity are very
small. The PHRb of the large hotel is 1.17, larger than that of the
restaurant but much smaller than that of the hospital.
The Rh,CHP and Rh,CHP-TS values are 0.871 and 0.912 (Fig. 5) representing a 4.7% possible increase in the fraction of thermal load
supplied by the CHP system. The required boiler size decreases
when TS is added to the CHP system, from 1361 to 1329 kW h.
The reduction is the same whether TScap is 0.25Qmax or equal to
Qmax. This is only a 2.4% reduction in the overall size of the boiler
required to meet the buildings thermal energy requirement. However, it illustrates that the CHP-TS system is functioning as desired,
by reducing the peak thermal load required from the boiler.
Outpatient
to the reference case obtained with a CHP system and CHP-TS
Fig. 5. Average Rh values for the fraction of required heat provided over one year by CHP and CHP-TS systems for eight building types.
Fig. 6. Variation of Cost, PEC, and CDE from reference case for CHP without TS and CHP-TS with varying TScap for a hospital.
Fig. 7. Variation of Cost, PEC, and CDE from reference case for CHP without TS and CHP-TS with varying TScap for a large hotel.
Fig. 8. Variation of Cost, PEC, and CDE from reference case for CHP without TS and CHP-TS with varying TScap for an outpatient building.
10
systems with varying thermal storage capacities for the outpatient

building. The outpatient building has a PHRb of 1.22, just larger
than the large hotel building, and the CHP-TS system does reduce
cost, PEC, and CDE more than CHP alone. As the size of the TS device increases, these reductions become more favorable. Again,
once TScap is about 75% of Qmax, the gains resulting from additional
thermal storage capacity are very small.
supplied by the CHP system. The required boiler size for each case
remains the same, at 227 kW h, indicating that the maximum
hourly thermal load which must be met by the boiler is not reduced by the addition of TS.
School
to the reference case obtained with a CHP system and CHP-TS systems with varying thermal storage capacities for the primary
school building. The primary school building has a PHRb of 1.31,
just larger than the outpatient building, and Fig. 8 illustrates that
the CHP-TS system does reduce cost, PEC, and CDE more than
CHP alone. As the size of the TS device increases, these reductions
grow, but the improvement slows somewhat as TScap approaches
Qmax.
Small hotel
Fig. 10 presents the reductions in cost, PEC, and CDE with respect to the reference case obtained with a CHP system and CHP-
TS systems with varying thermal storage capacities for the small

hotel building. The small hotel has the second largest PHRb after
the hospital, with a value of 2.37. Similarly, the CHP-TS system
does not reduce cost, PEC, and CDE more than a CHP system alone.
As with the hospital building, the reduction from the reference
case differs by less than 1% between the CHP system and any of
the CHP-TS systems.
The Rh,CHP and Rh,CHP-TS values are 0.988 and 0.992 (Fig. 5) representing only a 0.3% possible increase in the fraction of thermal
load supplied by the CHP system. As with the hospital building,
the value for Rh,CHP is almost 1 and adding TS will not provide additional benets. The required boiler size for each case also remains
the same, at 76 kW h, indicating that the maximum hourly thermal
load which must be met by the boiler is not reduced by the addition of TS. The addition of a TS device is not benecial for this particular case.
Small ofce
Fig. 11 presents the reductions in cost, PEC, and CDE with respect to the reference case obtained with a CHP system and CHPTS systems with varying thermal storage capacities for the small
ofce building. Although the small ofce has a relatively large PHRb
of 2.27, the CHP-TS system does reduce cost, PEC, and CDE more
than CHP alone. As the size of the TS device increases, these reductions grow, but the improvement slows somewhat as TScap approaches Qmax. The Rh,CHP and Rh,CHP-TS values are 0.922 and 0.950
(Fig. 5) representing a 3.0% possible increase in the fraction of thermal load supplied by the CHP system. The required boiler size for
each case remains the same, at 51 kW h, indicating that the maximum hourly thermal load which must be met by the boiler is not
reduced by the addition of TS. However, because of the variation in
the thermal demand of the small ofce building, the CHP-TS system often makes supplemental heat from the boiler unnecessary,
even though the size of the boiler required to meet Qmax remains
Fig. 9. Variation of Cost, PEC, and CDE from reference case for CHP without TS and CHP-TS with varying TScap for a primary school.
Fig. 10. Variation of Cost, PEC, and CDE from reference case for CHP without TS and CHP-TS with varying TScap for a small hotel.
11
Fig. 11. Variation of Cost, PEC, and CDE from reference case for CHP without TS and CHP-TS with varying TScap for a small ofce.
Fig. 12. Variation of Cost, PEC, and CDE from reference case for CHP without TS and CHP-TS with varying TScap for a supermarket.
the same. Therefore, even though a much larger portion of the

buildings overall energy needs is in the form of electrical energy,
a properly sized CHP-TS system can relieve the thermal load in
such a way as to reduce operational cost, PEC, and CDE.
Supermarket
Fig. 12 presents the reductions in cost, PEC, and CDE with respect to the reference case obtained with a CHP system and CHPTS systems with varying thermal storage capacities for the supermarket building. The supermarket building has a PHRb of 1.50, just
larger than the primary school building, and the CHP-TS system
does reduce cost, PEC, and CDE more than CHP alone. As the size
of the TS device increases, these reductions grow, but the improvement slows somewhat as TScap approaches Qmax.
General discussion
In general it can be seen that for all the evaluated buildings the
use of a CHP system reduces cost, PEC, and CDE. The addition of TS
does reduce cost, PEC, and CDE more than CHP alone for all selected buildings except for the hospital and small hotel buildings.
The results indicate that the building PHR is one of the factors that
affect the potential of the thermal storage to provide benets when
combined with a CHP system. The hospital and the small hotel
buildings are the two buildings with the highest PHR among the
selected buildings which indicates that the building needs more
electrical energy than thermal energy. As previously shown [1], a
high Rh value is benecial in terms of reducing cost, PEC, and
CDE, and it was shown that a larger increase from Rh,CHP to Rh,CHP-TS indicated greater potential for TS to further reduce cost,
PEC, and CDE. Also, it is important to highlight that for all buildings
the carbon dioxide emissions is the parameter that benets most
from the use of the CHP-TS system, followed by the PEC and operational cost.
Conclusions
This paper presented a methodology to investigate the benets
of a thermal energy storage option combined with a CHP system.
The methodology was applied to eight different commercial building types located in Chicago, IL.
The results of this study indicate which types of commercial
buildings may show benets from CHP-TS systems and which
types are unlikely to benet from the addition of TS. Because any
TS device will require additional capital which is not accounted
for in this analysis, it is desirable that the addition of TS should
provide substantial economic benets in terms of reduced fuel
costs, and reduce or eliminate the requirement for supplemental
heating. Cold climates such as that of Chicago are generally better
for CHP due to the increased heating requirements compared with
warmer climates, but adding TS will not always reduce the need for
a supplemental boiler or signicantly reduce the operating costs,
even if the TS device is large compared with the buildings maximum heating demand. The TS device modeled does not suffer from
thermal losses or limitations on its ability to receive and deliver
heat. When this idealized device does not show the potential for
a cost, emission, or energy-saving benet, a TS device in practice
certainly will not produce this benet; when the idealized device
does show the potential for benet, a real device may not achieve
the benets shown here due to limitations which need further
analysis depending on that particular devices technology.
12
For the hospital and small hotel buildings, the addition of TS

would not provide any additional benets over a properly sized
CHP system. These are the buildings with the largest PHRb values,
indicating that the building demands much more electrical energy
rather than thermal energy. Therefore, the building rarely needs to
use the excess thermal energy stored in the TS device.
Sizing a TS device to be 75% or more of the maximum hourly
thermal requirement is not recommended. The increased cost
associated with such a large device provides very little return in
the form of reducing cost, PEC, and CDE, even without taking capital costs into consideration. For the six buildings in which TS reduced cost, PEC, and CDE, these benets appeared even when the
TS device was sized at 25% of Qmax, the smallest thermal capacity
size which was modeled here. The appropriate TScap for an actual
building will be determined based on the capital and maintenance
costs associated with the particular TS system to be installed. If the
TS device reduces the necessary boiler size, this may also be taken
into account; however, based on the buildings studied, a signicant
reduction in boiler size is unlikely. Because the maximum thermal
load occurs at a time step when the TS device does not have energy
stored, the maximum thermal energy required from the boiler in a
one-hour time step cannot be reduced in most cases.
While thermal storage will provide some benet in most cases,
it is not recommended that the PGU size is larger for a CHP-TS system than it would be a for a similar CHP system.
As a general guideline, for the evaluated buildings, when the
PHRb is greater than 2.3, the addition of TS is unlikely to provide
any additional benet when added to a CHP system. However,
the potential benets from TS will also vary according to how
the thermal energy requirements of the building change over time.
If the thermal load varies from hour to hour or day to day, TS is
more likely to contribute to balancing the variation in thermal energy requirement.
The assumptions made about the ideal TS device mean that the
potential benets in terms of reduced cost, PEC, and CDE are the
maximum reductions which could be produced with a perfect TS
device; actual devices will be subject to thermal losses and other
limitations on the system. Therefore, if it is determined for a particular building that the addition of TS may be benecial, these
results may indicate a general storage capacity range to be considered for the TS device, based on the maximum possible thermal energy stored in the device relative to the maximum heat load for the
building under consideration. At this point, one or more types of TS
devices may be considered and the performance characteristics of
the actual device should be accounted for in the engineering analysis [8,13,30].
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Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 1 (2013) 312

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments

Original Research Article

Benets of thermal energy storage option combined with CHP system

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mississippi State University, USA

carbon dioxide emissions

Many types of thermal energy storage are available which may

primary energy consumption of the building with a CHP

CHP system model

The CHP system considered for each building is shown in Fig. 1.

Full service restaurant

Q boiler Q req Q rec

if Q rec < Q req

Fig. 1. CHP system schematic.

Epgu PGUsize 1 h 3:6 106

with PGUsize given in kW and Epgu given in J.

Q rec F pgu Epgu ngrec

Fig. 2. CHP-TS system schematic.

When the heat produced is insufcient to meet Qreq, the stored

Costref Ereq Coste F boiler;ref Costf

where Ereq represents the electricity required by the building, Coste

where gboiler,ref represents the efciency of the boiler used in the

CostCHP Egrid Coste F pgu F boiler Costf

where Qboiler is given by Eq. (5).

Q storage-new Q storage-old Q rec Q req

If the amount of heat recovered from the CHP system is less

Q storage-new Q storage-old Q rec Q req

If the amount of heat recovered from the CHP system is the

The fraction of the thermal demand that is satised by the CHP

The heat provided from the supplemental boiler is now:

Q boiler Q req Q rec Q TS

if Q req Q rec Q TS > 0

The fuel energy consumed by the boiler can be calculated using

The primary energy consumption (PEC) of the reference case is

PECref Ereq CFPEC;e F boiler;ref CFPEC;f

where CFPEC,e is the primary energy conversion factor for purchased

PECCHP Egrid CFPEC;e F pgu F boiler CFPEC;f

CDEref Ereq CDEe F boiler;ref CDEf

CDECHP Egrid CDEe F pgu F boiler CDEf

In order to investigate the benets of TS combined with a CHP

Full service restaurant

PGU sizing analysis

PGU size (kW)

Full service restaurant

Full service restaurant

TScap = 0.25Qmax (kW h)

TScap = 0.50Qmax (kW h)

TScap = 0.75Qmax (kW h)

TScap = Qmax (kW h)

Full service restaurant

an impact on the economic, energetic, and environmental analysis.

primary energy saved is different for each building, all building

systems with varying thermal storage capacities for the outpatient

TS systems with varying thermal storage capacities for the small

the same. Therefore, even though a much larger portion of the

For the hospital and small hotel buildings, the addition of TS

[4] Haeseldonckx D, Peeters L, Helsen L, Dhaeseleer W. The impact of thermal

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