ANNOUNCEMENTS
Cold storages are important for the storage of short-term and long-term perishable food items but they consume a significant amount of electrical power for its operation. Cold Storages operation depends on the ambient conditions. The consumption of electricity is higher during day-time as ambient temperatures are high. Also, energy service providers charge high to penalize high consumption of power at a specific time. Integrating cold storages with the storage systems will contribute to peak shifting, load shaving of the grid and also increase the energy efficiency of cold storage systems. Latent thermal energy systems are an excellent choice for storage in cold storages. The project is focused on the design and development of the Latent Thermal Energy System (LTES) for its application in Cold storages. Phase change materials (PCM) help store thermal energy in LTES systems. In this study, a discharge coil of LTES tank is designed. The coiling design depends on output parameters in cold storage, input parameters of air and properties of PCM. The total refrigeration load during pulldown and holding period was calculated as 0.211 TR and 0.107 TR respectively. The discharge coil mass flow rate was calculated as 0.00042 kg/s and 0.0001 kg/s during the pulldown and holding period. A 3D model of the LTES system is designed which would cater to the refrigeration load of cold storage consisting of 1 MT potatoes. Simulations are performed using COMSOL Multiphysics to understand the discharging characteristics of the discharge coil in the LTES tank. The simulation results show that the temperature gradient of 2 K/m at the end of the discharge coil. The simulations prove that an outlet temperature of 4-6 °C can be achieved in the discharge coil of LTES during the holding period.
Keywords: Latent thermal Energy Storage, Phase change material, Cold storage, COMSOL Multiphysics.
