4 ms·
This is a useful thing: storing energy in a phase change makes it easier to keep the energy stored for a longer period of time compared to if there was no phase
by xvedejas 5y ago
This is a useful thing: storing energy in a phase change makes it easier to keep the energy stored for a longer period of time compared to if there was no phase change. The difficult part is that steam is much farther from ambient temperatures than ice is (and also that it is far less compact). Newton's law of cooling means that the larger the temperature difference, the faster the heat loss, so steam would require much more insulation than ice would.
- sacrosancty 5y agoBesides insulation, there's no hope of storing thermal energy as steam because the density is 1000 times lower than ice or water while the specific heat is similar, so the heat capacity per unit volume is about 1000 times lower.
- SECProto 5y agoStoring heat as steam is actually very good and efficient - as long as you're storing the heat for location shifting, not temporal shifting. It's regularly used in combined heat + power plants (Yeah, I know I'm being both pedantic and off topic, since the discussion here is specifically about seasonal storage)
- sacrosancty 5y agoDoesn't the word "storing" already mean temporal shifting?