Abstract:
Energy consumption in buildings has increased as a result of the heat gain and loss of the
building‘s envelope. Its materials and layers play an important role in its efficiency. This
study aims to provide an environmental solution that contributes to store the heat energy
in long-term (seasonally), reducing heat loss and gain, and thus reducing energy
consumption, by Using a Sodium Acetate Trihydrate (SAT) phase change material
(PCM) and its melting point is (58C) integrated with expanded polystyrene (EPS) thermal
insulation material (TIM) on the southern façade of a residential building located in
Hebron-Palestine by suggesting different scenarios of the PCM-TIM integration‘s layers
arrangements and design to select the best scenario in seasonal thermal energy storage
(TES) by studying the wall layers before and after adding PCM-TIM integration,
analyzing, thermal calculations and simulating its thermal performance in summer and
winter seasons using Design Builder Software (DB) and Energy Plus engine and simulate
the heat flow for the best scenario using ANSYS Fluent software. The results indicated
that the use of PCM-TIM integration improved the thermal comfort conditions inside the
space, as it was found that the proposed design for M3-A was the best model among all
the proposed scenarios in TES and indoor thermal comfort in both summer and winter
seasons. This design proved its economic efficiency when it provided annual heating and
cooling loads reductions of approximately 72% compared to the CM wall. In terms of
cost, this model has proven its economic feasibility with a payback period not exceeding
3 years.
Key words: PCM, thermal insulation, energy consumption, thermal performance,
energy storage, long-term, solar energy.
