Solar Greenhouse With Thermal Energy Storage: a Review

Various heating systems are used to meet the heating requirements of the greenhouses. The conventional solution for this problem is the burning of some fossil fuel inside the greenhouse during cold days. The use of latent heat energy for greenhouse heating in winter days is a significant development. The storage of the excess heat in greenhouses for sunny days in a cold season is advantageous, in view of increasing concerns over usage of fossil fuel. Thermal storage plays a vital role in solar devices particularly in greenhouses to improve its performance because of the intermittent nature of solar energy. Therefore, a storage system constitutes an important component of the solar energy utilisation system. Thermal energy can be stored as sensible heat, latent heat or chemical energy. The present study is carried out to present a review of the solar greenhouse based on latent and sensible heat energy storage. The various designs and application methods are reviewed considering different thermal energy storage materials employed for building a solar greenhouse and future prospects of the same have been discussed.