Ice Bear 30 Hybrid Air Conditioner

Air conditioning during summer hours can contribute significantly to the peak demand charge on a customer’s electric bill. By shifting air conditioning to off-peak hours, a substantial reduction in demand charges may be achieved. Thermal energy storage was developed for this purpose.

Thermal energy storage (TES) is the process of generating energy in the form of heat or cold and storing it for use at a later time. As an air conditioning option, a TES system would involve operating a chiller to produce ice in storage containers during off-peak hours (usually at night), when the electrical needs for the building are at a minimum and the generating capacity of your electric company is underutilized. The following day, the ice can be used by the air conditioning system to meet the cooling load during peak hours. Besides the substantial demand charge savings achieved by this load-shifting measure, a well designed TES system can often reduce energy consumption, as well.

 

CALMAC ICEBANK® Thermal Energy Storage Tank

This section examines specific TES technologies in great detail to ensure a good understanding of this integrated energy solution component.

Ice Bear 30® Hybrid Air Conditioner

This unique and relatively low cost energy storage technology is the first of its kind designed specifically for the commercial customer, educational and institutional market segments. The rapidly deployable product is the first commercially available point of use energy storage system to integrate the reduction of on-peak kW demand and on-peak energy consumption with zero loss storage and without a change in customer behavior.

Large Thermal Ice Storage System

CALMAC's Off-Peak Cooling systems (OPC) utilize a standard packaged chiller to produce ice during the night and store it in modular ICEBANK® thermal-energy storage tanks. The stored ice provides cooling the following day to meet the building’s air-conditioning requirement.

Off-peak cooling is an important part of a high-performance, sustainable design. OPC provides a demand-responsive cooling system with fuel-source flexibility in an unregulated energy market.    Aside from the economic benefits, OPC also improves comfort by lowering humidity levels.