Development of prototype using phase change materials to enhance active thermal mass energy storage in buildings to achieve low energy and comfortable indoor climates.

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The project aims to develop a prototype phase change cooling product with increased abilityto store and transfer energy.Low energy buildings frequently feature highly insulated facades, carefully designed daylighting & airtight building construction. However, as these initiatives drive down energyusage, theconditioning of the incoming ventilation air becomes a significantly larger proportion of theenergy usage.This presents an opportunity to further reduce the energy consumption by actively usingthermal mass, although achieving low energy comfort with the controllability users requirehasproved difficult. The limitations of storage capacity & thermal conductivity of the mass, haverestricted the ability of such systems to deal with higher loads or more extreme temperatures.This lack of conditioning power can be improved by positioning air and fluid distributionchannels close to the exposed ceiling surface and the incoming air path. This maximises theability of the system to quickly influence the temperature of the occupied space.As a further improvement, phase change material (pcm) properties, are added to (1) create amore responsive delivery system able to provide closer indoor temperature control as desiredby occupants. (2) Reduce operating CO² emissions, 3) Provide more powerful thermal massbased systems able to compete with refrigerant air conditioning systems.