A SUMMARY OF CENTRAL SOLAR HEATING PLANTS WITH SEASONAL STORAGE

ABSTRACT This paper is a summary of a review of the literature pertaininig to the research and development on the use of seasonal energy storage in solar heating systems. More than 30 operating solar heating systems utilizing seasonal storage in a dozen countries have been identified and characterized. The important findings of both national and international studies on the technical and economic merits of seasonal storage for solar heating were also reviewed. Successful systems have been designed, built, and operated and some approaches are nearing commercial status. A variety of thermal energy storage techniques and collector types have been tested, but many potentially viable configurations have not been studied in depth. Most of the systems that have been built and tested to date are not large enough to show significant economies of scale, but larger plants employing more than 100,000 m2 collector arrays are planned.