No abstract

Pumped Thermal Energy Storages (PTES) are suitable for bridging temporary energy shortages, which may occur due to the utilization of renewable energy sources. A combined heat pump (HP)-Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) system with suitable thermal storage offers a favorable way to store energy for small to medium sized applications. To address the aspect of flexibility, the part load behavior of a combined HP-ORC system, both having R1233zd(E) (Trans-1-chloro-3,3,3-trifluoropropene) as working fluid and being connected through a water filled sensible thermal energy storage, is investigated using a MATLAB code with integration of the fluid database REFPROP. The influence on the isentropic efficiency of the working machines and therefore the power to power efficiency (P2P) of the complete system is shown by variation of the mass flow and a temperature drop in the thermal storage. Further machine-specific parameters such as volumetric efficiency and internal leakage efficiency are also considered. The results show the performance characteristics of the PTES as a function of the load. While the drop in storage temperature has only slight effects on the P2P efficiency, the reduction in mass flow contributes to the biggest decrease in the efficiency. Furthermore, a simulation for dynamic load analysis of a small energy grid in a settlement is conducted to show the course of energy demand, supplied energy by photovoltaic (PV) systems, as well as the PTES performance indicators throughout an entire year. It is shown that the use of PTES is particularly useful in the period between winter and summer time, when demand and supplied photovoltaic energy are approximately equal.

No abstract

No abstract

The life cycle assessment of components is becoming increasingly important for planning and construction. In this paper, a novel storage technology for excess electricity consisting of a heat pump, a heat storage and an organic rankine cycle is investigated with regards to its environmental impact. Waste heat is exergetically upgraded, stored in a hot water storage unit and afterwards reconverted to electricity when needed. Such a pilot plant on a lab scale is currently built in Germany. The first part of this paper focuses on geothermal energy as a potential heat source for the storage system and its environmental impact. For a large scale application, geothermal hotspots in Germany are further investigated. The second part analyzes the storage technology itself and compares it to the impacts of commonly used battery storage technologies. Especially during the manufacturing process, significantly better global warming potential values are shown compared to lithium-ion and lead batteries. The least environmental impact while operating the system is with wind power, which suggests an implementation of the storage system into the grid in the northern part of Germany.

The present study deals with the solvent-dependent morphology-dependent resonances (MDR) in the laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) signal of monodisperse gasoline droplets (30 µm–60 µm) generated with a droplet generator. To investigate the influence of an ethanol addition to gasoline and the respective LIF signal of the dye nile red dissolved in these fuel blends, a reference gasoline fuel is blended with various ethanol concentrations from E0 (gasoline) to E100 (pure ethanol). A spectral fluorescence characterization of the investigated fuel mixtures at various concentrations is carried out in a micro cell in order to identify the dye and ethanol concentration influence of the respective fuel mixtures. The absorption and emission spectra of the fuel mixtures show a Stokes shift with increasing ethanol concentration towards larger wavelengths. The coefficient of variation (COV) of the fluorescence signals of spherical droplets was utilized to characterize the MDR effects within the droplet LIF images. The investigations revealed an increase of MDR contribution in terms of the COV of LIF signals with larger droplet diameters. For small droplets, no monotonic trend was found for contribution of MDR in the LIF signal as a function of the ethanol concentration. For larger droplets (e.g., 50 µm–60 µm), a lower contribution of MDR in LIF signals was observed with increasing ethanol content. For E80 and most of the studied ethanol blends, the normalized integrated COV values exhibited maxima at certain droplet sizes (40 µm, 47.5 µm, and 55 µm), which indicate the presence of distinct MDR effects.