
There are several types of STES technology, covering a range of applications from single small buildings to community district heating networks. Generally, efficiency increases and the specific construction cost decreases with size. UTES (underground thermal energy storage), in which the storage medium may be geological strata ranging from earth or sand to solid bedrock, or aquifers. UTES technologies include: [pdf]
Image showing heat loss from a house. New research on thermal energy storage could lead to summer heat being stored for use in winter. Credit: Active Building Centre, Swansea University Funding to research thermal energy storage that could cut bills and boost renewables.
A group of Swiss researchers claim to have come up with a process that stores heat captured during summer for easy, flick-of-a-switch use in winter, with the added benefit that the captured energy can be physically transported anywhere it may be needed.
Funding to research thermal energy storage that could cut bills and boost renewables. New technology that could store heat for days or even months, helping the shift towards net zero, is the focus of a new project involving the Active Building Centre Research Programme, led by Swansea University, which has just been awarded funding of £146,000.
Seasonal thermal energy storage (STES), also known as inter-seasonal thermal energy storage, is the storage of heat or cold for periods of up to several months. The thermal energy can be collected whenever it is available and be used whenever needed, such as in the opposing season.
Warm-temperature seasonal heat stores can be created using borehole fields to store surplus heat captured in summer to actively raise the temperature of large thermal banks of soil so that heat can be extracted more easily (and more cheaply) in winter.
Alternative descriptions include: Heat Bank, Heat Battery, Heat Store, Heat Vault, Underground Energy Storage, Seasonal Heat Storage, Interseasonal Heat Store, Seasonal Thermal Store, Interseasonal Thermal store, Underground Thermal Energy Storage ("UTES"), seasonal soil heat accumulator.
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