Storing Thermal Energy – A Cool New Way!
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According to the company millions of Cryogel Ice Ball systems are operating around the world in schools, hospitals, airports, office buildings, churches, government offices and industrial plants.
Ice Balls can be placed in existing tanks formerly used for storage of other materials.
During the past 16 years, Cryogel has shipped more than 20 million Ice Balls to thermal energy storage installations around the world. Schools, hospitals, airports, office buildings and manufacturing facilities are avoiding the use of expensive on-peak electricity by using Cryogel Ice Balls. Source: Cryogel If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! |
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When your think of thermal energy storage you naturally think of storing energy in hot fluids or materials such as salt or sand. How about ice? I came across an interesting company based out of San Diego California that does just that. Cyrocel has a system to store thermal energy in the form of small ice balls. Thermal energy is stored in the Ice using low cost offpeak electricity at night to freeze four inch diameter plastic bags of water into ice balls. Cool energy is released the next day or when required for air conditioning or process cooling applications. This system is relatively simple in concept and implementation and could easily be used to store energy produced from clean renewable source such as wind or solar.
Cryogel’s four inch diameter Ice Ball thermal energy storage systems produce ice balls that are small enough t0 be stored in almost any shape or size of storage tank . The tank construction can be steel, concrete, atmospheric or pressurized either above grade or buried. This flexibility reduces the capital cost in a retrofit or new construction situation where thermal energy storage was not possible before. 
