In our climes, the use of solar energy to heat buildings is deemed problematic: During the winter-period sufficient storage capacity is necessary to compensate for days short of sunshine hours. At the same time, storage systems currently available on the market are costly and inefficient. For this reason isocal Heizkühlsysteme GmbH has developed the SolarIce storage system.
The system is based on water which is the best and cheapest medium for energy storage. The concept is simple: During the winter period a thermal heat pump withdraws heat and crystallization energy from the water until it freezes. The resulting body of ice can be used for active climatization during the summer period. At the same time the storage system thermally regenerates and can be reused as a source of heat energy during the next winter.
The technique is deployable for buildings all sizes, from supermarkets to cottages and allows for savings of 50 % for heating and of 99 % for climatization. It was awarded the 2006 Innovation Prize of the German gas industry.
