SBIR Phase II: Regenerative Freeze Suppression for Thermally Bound Energy Storage Systems

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project includes peak demand relief for utilities, reduced freezer operating costs for retail stores, and natural refrigerants for regulators. Unfortunately, no state-ofthe- art system simultaneously addresses all these issues. Industrial/commercial batteries remain unaffordable, refrigeration costs account for 60% of a retail store?s electricity bills and equipment manufacturers are only realizing incremental efficiency improvements with new vapor compression architectures. This project introduces an energy storage technology, embedded in a natural refrigerant cooling cycle, that provides load-shifting services and a 40% reduction in commercial freezer electrical purchases. More importantly, it achieves this at a 3-year payback without government incentives using natural, near ambient, materials. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will investigate an energy storage technique utilizing water as the storage material in a time delayed, freeze-point-suppression refrigeration cycle. The project will focus on the internal testing, third party validation and commercial demonstration of a 10kWth system. Successful integration within low temperature refrigeration architectures requires industrial design focused on skid/waste heat integration, validation testing to inform required part count reductions/system revisions and demonstration to monitor, learn and revise the technology in preparation for scale up.