Energy Management of Solar Thermal Battery: Issues and Challenges

Fossil fuels are the major source of energy in developing countries but problems like generation of greenhouse gases and financial burden on the economy due to import are the problems associated with it among others. The use of renewable energy sources like solar energy is increasing now a days but problems like fluctuation of energy in day and time dependent availability hindered its implementation at large scale. This problem can be overcome by the application of solar thermal battery that store the solar energy in various forms. In this paper, state-of the-art of energy storge and their issues and challenges of in form of sensible, latent and thermo-chemical system were presented. Later, experimental study of tailoring paraffin wax for storing the solar energy in form latent heat were presented. It is concluded that pure paraffin wax is not appropriate energy storage material in form latent heat because of low thermal conductivity. State of the art of enhancing the thermal conductivity of various phase change materials were also reported.