Fafco, a global specialist in thermal energy storage solutions, has appointed Pure Thermal as its exclusive sales and technical partner / distributor for the UK and Irish markets.
With over 1,400 operational IceBat systems across Europe, Fafco is now bringing its ‘proven’ cold thermal energy storage technology to the UK, in a move that it says ‘addresses the increasing demand for cost-effective and resilient cooling solutions’.
Pure Thermal – which supplies ‘advanced low carbon heating and cooling and energy-efficient solutions’ for the UK and Irish markets (offering system design, equipment supply, integration, and plant optimisation), explains that the IceBat system is ‘an advanced cold thermal energy storage (CTES) phase change system that enhances cooling system efficiency, while significantly reducing operating costs and carbon emissions’.
Pure Thermal explained: “By leveraging low-cost off-peak electricity to create and store cooling energy, IceBat provides a fast-reacting, highly flexible alternative to conventional electrical battery storage, making it particularly suited to the UK’s evolving energy landscape.”
Key benefits of the IceBat system include:
- It provides cooling system resilience.
- Reduces the need for oversized chillers/plant, while ensuring that peak or contingent demands can be satisfied by maintaining predetermined cooling capacity levels for use at any time
- Enables cooling capacity peak shaving with no additional power supply.
- Increases on-site cooling capacity from existing systems by accumulating thermal capacity during low demand periods by applying chillers to charge the IceBat.
- Reduces operating costs via accessing variable/lower electricity tariffs.
- Maximises and enables the use of low-cost electricity by operating chillers/cooling plant to charge the IceBat when lower cost tariffs are available.
- Provides ‘application flexibility’, with a complete range of kWh capacities.
IceBat can be applied to a wide range of applications with thermal battery capacities from 150 to 18,000 kWh, and – Pure Thermal adds – ‘works with existing chiller/cooling plant without the requirement for independent cooling plant, thus enabling greater flexibility from existing assets’. It added: The technology offers scalable performance, while close control provides variable charge and discharge capability, precisely modulating energy transfer, with a minimum output flow temperature of 0.5 °C.” The system is reportedly suitable for both retrofit and new installations.
“We’re seeing increasing requirements for load shifting, and also capacity management within cooling applications,” said Garry Broadbent of Pure Thermal. “Having developed a strong relationship with Fafco, and been extremely impressed with its proven track record, we are really pleased to be appointed as its UK partner, and see significant potential for cold thermal energy storage in the UK and Ireland.”