Using Latent Energy of Water-ice Phase Change to Reduce Energy Losses in Buildings in Cold Climate

Energy efficiency in buildings is a very important challenge that has to be faced in order to achieve the aims set by the new EU directive on Building energy efficiency encouraging nearly zero energy buildings. Unfortunately in countries with cold climate it is very hard to achieve this goal. The thickness of insulation needed to reach low energy consumption in cold climate is very big and in many cases it is not economically feasible. There is a need for new solutions for increasing building energy efficiency. In this paper a new solution for increasing building energy efficiency is proposed. It is proposed to use the latent energy of water-ice phase change to reduce heat conduction losses through building envelope. The latent energy is recovered by using low potential heat source. In this paper the validity of the proposed new solution is tested on a one dimensional scale – homogeneous infinite wall. The presented methodology is chosen to calculate systems operational efficiency throughout the whole year.