Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 103 (2019) 71–84

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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

A review and evaluation of thermal insulation materials and methods for T

thermal energy storage systems
Willy Villasmil , Ludger J. Fischer, Jörg Worlitschek
⁎

School of Engineering and Architecture, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, 6048 Horw, Switzerland

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: As thermal energy storage (TES) technologies gain more significance in the global energy market, there is an
Thermal insulation increasing demand to improve their energy efficiency and, more importantly, reduce their costs. In this article,
Thermal energy storage (TES) two different methods for insulating TES systems that are either incorporated inside residential buildings or
Thermal conductivity buried underground in direct vicinity of the building are reviewed and discussed. Boundary conditions are
Vacuum insulation panel (VIP)
storage volumes in the range 10 – 1000 m3 and storage temperatures up to 90 °C. The first method involves the
Vacuum superinsulation
Evacuated powders
application of thermal insulation materials on the outside of the storage. Thermophysical properties and costs of
conventional materials (such as mineral wools and organic foams) are compared against those of state-of-the-art
products such as vacuum insulation panels and aerogels. A parametric comparative analysis is conducted to
evaluate the combined costs of thermal insulation and living space occupied by the thermal insulation for TES
systems integrated inside buildings. It is shown, for example, that the use of vacuum insulation panels becomes
advantageous when the economic value of saving living space outweighs the extra cost of the insulation itself.
The second method discussed is the so-called evacuated powders, in which the insulation is realized by creating
an evacuated double-wall powder-containing envelope around the storage. The theoretical foundations of this
method are discussed and the properties of commonly used powders – such as expanded perlite and fumed silica
– are provided. Reference costs of double-wall vacuum-insulated TES tanks are provided and the use of evac-
uated powders is compared against the application of conventional insulation materials.

1. Introduction power plants [7–9], large underground water tanks in DH networks

In combination with thermal energy storage, renewable energy
technologies offer a vast potential for the supply of residential space
heating and the production of domestic hot water (DHW). Space and
water heating are responsible for a large portion of the energy needs of
residential buildings: 79% in Europe [1] and 62% in the United States
[2]. While solar thermal collector technologies are becoming wide-
spread, cheaper, and increasingly more efficient [3], the intermittent
nature of solar energy poses a challenge in the route toward increasing
the solar fraction during the winter season. This limitation can be
overcome by incorporating seasonal thermal energy storage (STES) to
balance – on a yearly basis – the temporal mismatch between high solar
yield in summer and high heat demand in winter [4]. The potential of
applying STES in combination with renewable energy sources has been
investigated for a number of different configurations, including ther-
mally stratified hot-water tanks incorporated in residential buildings to
store solar energy [5,6], pit storage in district heating (DH) systems in
combination with waste heat utilization, solar thermal and biomass
[10], and borehole thermal energy storage in district heating systems to
store industrial waste heat [11–13].
There are essentially three methods for thermal energy storage:
chemical, latent, and sensible [14]. Chemical storage, despite its po-
tential benefits associated to high energy densities and negligible heat
losses, does not yet show clear advantages for building applications due
to its complexity, uncertainty, high costs, and the lack of a suitable
material for chemical storage that satisfies all the requirements for
building operations [15]. While chemical storage technology is still at
laboratory stage, sensible and latent heat technologies are matured and
already at industrial stage [16]. In addition to their lower energy
densities, one of the major shortcomings of latent and sensible storage
is that they store thermal energy at higher temperatures and thus incur
unavoidable heat losses. Moreover, when heat is stored over a long
period of time, such as in seasonal storage systems, heat losses can
become substantial if the storage container is not properly insulated.
Heat losses represent, in fact, the greatest concern in seasonal sensible
storage systems [17].

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: willy.villasmil@hslu.ch (W. Villasmil).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2018.12.040
Received 31 July 2018; Received in revised form 5 December 2018; Accepted 17 December 2018
Available online 28 December 2018
1364-0321/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
W. Villasmil et al.
Nomenclature
A Area [m2]
d Diameter of the storage container [m]
DHW Domestic hot water
dp Mean pore size [m]
EPS Expanded polystyrene
GW Glass wool
h Height of storage container [m]
L Thickness of insulation layer [m]
MVBEP Market value of real estate at break-even point [€ m–2]
p Pressure [Pa]
PUR-PIR Polyurethane-polyisocyanurate
The problem of reaching an increased market diffusion of sensible
STES is not attributed to a lack of knowledge of these technologies,
which is considered to be high, but rather to their high cost [18]. Thus,
minimizing the annual heat losses while ensuring the economic viabi-
lity of the storage becomes a task of increasing importance in the path
towards sustainable-energy buildings. These conflicting requirements
typically lead to an optimization problem in which the costs of the
insulation system and the storage container need to be balanced against
the penalty costs associated to the annual heat losses and the space
occupied by the storage. The latter is particularly relevant when the
storage is placed inside a residential or commercial building, given that
the volume of currently available storage systems is still considerable
and represents a critical factor in the cost optimization problem [19].
One of the most significant aspects in the cost optimization of a
storage system is its thermal insulation. The selection and specification
of the insulation system (material/method and thermal resistance) not
only determines the associated investment costs, but more importantly,
it largely governs the thermal efficiency of the storage system over its
lifetime. Moreover, in thermally stratified hot water tanks, avoiding
heat losses is even more important given that such losses enhance
convective mixing, which deteriorate the thermal stratification and
ultimately reduce the exergetic efficiency of the storage [20–22]. In the
building sector, thermal insulation continues to receive significant at-
tention in the literature as there is well-established knowledge about
the strong correlation between the energy consumption of a building
and the characteristics of its envelope [23–26]. In terms of the eco-
nomic aspect of thermal insulation, several studies have presented
different methods to optimize the thermal insulation of buildings
Fig. 1. Scenarios considered for the incorporation of seasonal thermal energy storage systems in buildings.
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 103 (2019) 71–84
STES Seasonal thermal energy storage
T Temperature [°C]
TES Thermal energy storage
V Volume [m3]
VIP Vacuum insulation panel
XPS Extruded polystyrene
Greek symbols
λ Thermal conductivity [mW m–1 K–1]
ρ Density [kg m–3]
σcc Compressive stress at 10% deformation [kPa]
insulated on the external walls [27–29], and the internal walls [30,31].
In the field of TES, similar studies and review articles are not widely
available in the literature.
The primary objective of this paper is to present a thorough review
and discussion on thermal insulation materials and methods suitable for
TES applications up to 90 °C. By providing relevant material char-
acteristics, thermophysical properties, and reference material costs, it
aims to serve as a concise reference tool in an endeavor to bring to-
gether the many studies available in the literature related to thermal
insulation methods for energy storage, energy-efficient buildings and
related fields. This article also presents a straightforward comparative
analysis that evaluates the economic potential of applying state-of-the-
art thermal insulation (such as vacuum insulation panels) in seasonal
TES systems integrated inside residential buildings. This potential is
quantified through comparison of the combined cost of (1) the thermal
insulation material, and (2) the living space occupied by the thermal
insulation. A more detailed economic assessment including dynamic
simulations is beyond the scope of this study. The economic analysis
presented here aims at estimating the magnitude of potential savings
and to stimulate additional research in thermal insulation techniques
for thermal energy storage.
2. Scenarios and boundary conditions
In this work, the focus is on STES systems above 60 °C for direct
supply of space heating and production of domestic hot water in single
buildings. Storage volumes between 10 and 1000 m3 are regarded for
this application. The concepts and data presented here can nevertheless
W. Villasmil et al.
be applied also to larger STES systems suitable for clusters of buildings
or district heating. In larger systems, however, the energetic and eco-
nomic relevance of the thermal insulation is usually not as important as
in smaller storage systems. This follows from the smaller surface-to-
volume ratio of larger systems and consequently their fundamentally
different thermal behavior and economic characteristics.
The scenarios considered here for the application of the thermal
insulation are shown in Fig. 1. In these scenarios, a typical STES system
consists of a thermally stratified water tank with a maximum tem-
perature in the range 60 – 90 °C [32]. Lower storage temperatures may
allow a reduction of heat losses, however at the expense of a larger
storage volume and the cost of incorporating supporting equipment
(e.g. a heat pump) to increase the temperature to a useful level [33].
The benefits of limiting the storage temperature below 100 °C include:
(1) lower thermal losses from the heat storage, (2) lower cost and vo-
lume of the thermal insulation, (3) lower thermal stress, (4) the possi-
bility of realizing the STES system with an unpressurized water tank
made of low-cost materials, and (5) the possibility of incorporating
thermal insulation on the inside of an unpressurized water reservoir.
In new constructions, the most common practice for the realization
of STES is to integrate a cylindrical steel tank in the middle of the
building with the aim of making use of the thermal losses from the tank
[34]. With this configuration, thermal losses from the storage can
contribute to cover as much as 20% of the space heating demand in
winter [35]. The disadvantage, on the other hand, is that thermal losses
from the storage continue to supply heat during the summer season,
which might lead to an undesirable increase in the indoor room tem-
perature. The storage tank sits typically on the building foundation as
shown in Fig. 1(a). An example of an integrated STES system is the
205 m3 cylindrical steel tank incorporated in a 900 m2 multi-family
house in Berne, Switzerland [36,37]. The heat input to the storage is
exclusively provided by an array of solar collectors with a total aperture
area of 276 m2. The house, constructed to the low-energy Swiss Mi-
nergie-P standard, has a specific annual heating demand of 21 kWh m–2
a–1. With a maximum storage temperature of 90 °C [38], the hot-water
STES system allows achieving a solar fraction of 100%.
One method to be explored to allow the integration of a STES system
in an existing building is the retrofit of an unused underground room
enclosure. The retrofit would consist of applying appropriate vapor bar-
rier and thermal insulation materials to the walls, floor, and ceiling of the
room to allow the entire space to be transformed in a hot water reservoir
for thermal energy storage. The challenges of incorporating the insulation
material on the inside wall of the storage are similar to those faced in the
construction of hot water pit storages [39]. The first challenge is the
Fig. 2. Cross-section of a thermal storage showing the arrangements considered in this work for the incorporation of thermal insulation. (a) on the outside of the
storage wall (e.g. using conventional thermal insulation materials); (b) double-wall vacuum filled with powder particles (also known as evacuated powders).
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 103 (2019) 71–84
development of a robust and cost-effective vapor barrier capable of pro-
tecting the thermal insulation against moisture over the lifetime of the
storage system – typically between 20 and 50 years. The second challenge
is to limit the long-term creep deformation of the thermal insulation that
results from the simultaneous effects of temperature and hydrostatic
pressure. Identifying suitable materials for this application is not dis-
cussed here, but will be the subject of a subsequent paper.
For the scenario in which the storage is located outside the building,
a hot water tank completely buried underground is considered. An
example of such a system is the 23 m3 elliptical concrete tank buried
next to a 215 m2 single-family house in Galway, Ireland [40]. The heat
input to the storage is provided by a solar collector array with a total
aperture area of 10.6 m2. The building, constructed to low-energy
Passive House standards, has a specific annual heating demand of 9.5
kWh m–2 a–1 (space heating only: 5.6 kWh m–2 a–1). With a maximum
storage temperature of about 65 °C, the STES system allows achieving a
total heat demand solar fraction of 47%.
As compared to a storage system incorporated in the building, an
underground storage system located outside can be expected to be more
economically favorable in locations where the cost of giving up usable
living space for the storage system is higher than the additional com-
plexities and excavation costs associated to the underground storage.
Furthermore, an underground STES system allows conserving available
land space, helps insulating the storage by virtue of the more stable and
less severe underground conditions in winter [41], and avoids the vi-
sual impact on the landscape. The latter aspect is crucial in locations
where landscape is especially valued, considering that visual impact is
frequently an important reason for opposition to renewable energy
projects [42,43].
While large-scale hot-water STES systems (> 10,000 m3) have been
realized in numerous projects in Germany and Denmark for district
heating [44,45], only a limited storage capacity based on small-scale
STES systems has been installed so far. This is likely the result of the
high costs associated with small STES systems, as investment costs are
known to increase dramatically when the storage volume is reduced
[17,39]. The economic hurdle of small-scale systems highlights the
importance of developing cost-effective thermal insulation solutions
that allow the storage structure to be built of low-cost materials and,
more importantly, to reduce the space required by large storage systems
incorporated inside buildings.
3. Thermal insulation methods and materials
For the application of thermal insulation under the scenarios shown
W. Villasmil et al.
in Fig. 1, the two arrangements schematically represented in Fig. 2 are
considered: (a) thermal insulation applied on the outside wall of the
storage (e.g. using organic foams, or vacuum insulation panels), dis-
cussed in Section 3.1, and (b) a double-wall vacuum envelope packed
with powder particles (also known as evacuated powders), discussed in
Section 3.2.
3.1. Thermal insulation applied to the storage outside wall
Whenever possible, applying thermal insulation on the outside wall
of the storage is usually the simplest and most cost-effective option. One
of the main advantages of this arrangement is that the thermal in-
sulation is neither subject to the pressure of the storage, nor directly
exposed to the hot water reservoir. In contrast to systems in which the
thermal insulation is applied on the inside of the storage, this config-
uration allows the use of a pressurized hot-water tank and the max-
imum storage temperature to be set independently of the compressive
strength of the thermal insulation material. The downside is the need to
build the storage structure out of corrosion-resistant materials given its
direct exposure to the hot water reservoir.
A selection of thermal insulation materials that can be applied on
the storage outside wall is presented in Table 1, along with their most
relevant thermophysical properties. The selection was made on the
basis of commercially available materials with maximum service tem-
peratures adequate for thermal energy storage in the range 60 – 90 °C.
Foam glass, in spite of its high thermal conductivity and high cost, has
been included in this list because of its superior compressive strength –
up to 1600 kPa according to EN 826 [46] – which makes it an ideal
candidate for insulating the foundations of a large storage system. From
the perspective of energy efficiency, the thermal conductivity is typi-
cally the most important property to be considered in the evaluation of
insulating materials. The thermal conductivity, λ, largely depends on
the density, internal structure (pore fraction and pore size), tempera-
ture, and moisture content of the insulation material [47–51]. For the
sake of providing a concise overview, thermal conductivity values re-
ported here (Table 1 and Fig. 3) correspond to dry materials at 20 °C
and do not include the dependence on the aforementioned variables.
3.1.1. Conventional thermal insulation materials
The European market of insulating materials is characterized by the
domination of two groups of products, namely inorganic fibrous ma-
terials (glass wool and rock wool), which account for 60% of the
market, and organic foamy materials (EPS and XPS and to a lesser ex-
tent PUR-PIR), which account for 27% of the market [52]. The high-
performance rigid polyurethane-polyisocyanurate (PUR-PIR) foam
[53–55] is sometimes regarded as a transitional material between
conventional materials and the group of so-called “superinsulation”
products, which includes vacuum insulation panels (VIP) and aerogels
[56]. As shown in Fig. 3, conventional insulation materials can offer
thermal conductivities in the range 19–46 mW m–1 K–1, and their
characteristic low cost makes them the preferred option in many
Table 1
Thermophysical properties of thermal insulation materials. λː thermal conductivity at 20 °C, dry material; ρ: bulk density; Tmax: maximum service temperature. σcc
compressive stress at 10% deformation. VIP: vacuum insulation panels; XPS: extruded polystyrene; EPS: expanded polystyrene; PUR-PIR: polyurethane-poly-
isocyanurate foam.
Insulation material Type λ [mW m–1 K–1]
VIP Superinsulation 4–8
Silica aerogels Superinsulation 4–20
PUR-PIR Organic, foamy 19–30
XPS Organic, foamy 25–35
EPS Organic, foamy 29–41
Glass wool Inorganic, fibrous 30–46
Rock wool Inorganic, fibrous 33–46
Foam glass Inorganic, foamy 38–61
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 103 (2019) 71–84
building and TES applications in today’s market. These materials are
usually produced in the form of mats or boards, and the fact that they
can be perforated and cut without deteriorating their insulating cap-
ability makes them easy and robust to handle and install. Similar to
other fibrous and foamy materials, their density – and consequently
their thermal conductivity – can vary over a wide range (e.g. 8–150 kg/
m3 for glass wool). This characteristic allows the density to be used as a
tuning parameter in the manufacturing process to produce materials
with specific thermal and mechanical properties.
The thermal performance of insulation materials can be evaluated
by comparing either the thermal conductivity (λ) or the material
thickness (L) required to provide a given thermal resistance (R-value =
L/λ). Here, a reference R-value of 10 m2 K W–1 (suitable for STES) is
used to allow a direct cost comparison of the various insulation mate-
rials. This comparison is presented in Table 2 and Fig. 4, in which the
required material thicknesses (L) were computed using the thermal
conductivities listed in Table 2 – the latter being mean λ-values derived
from the ranges shown in Table 1. As compared to the group of su-
perinsulators, the unit costs of conventional insulation materials fall
within a relatively narrow range – from 32 €/m2 for EPS to 59 €/m2 for
PUR-PIR foams. The insulation thickness – another parameter of major
relevance in the optimization of STES systems integrated inside build-
ings – ranges from 25 cm for PUR-PIR to 40 cm for rock wool. It will be
shown in Section 4 that this difference in thickness can have a sig-
nificant impact on the volume occupied by the thermal insulation and
ultimately on the penalty costs associated to the space occupied by the
storage inside a residential building.
Specific applications of conventional thermal insulation materials to
STES systems include the hot-water tanks produced by Jenni
Energietechnik [57,58]. Their steel tanks operate at 3 bar and a max-
imum temperature of 95 °C, with storage volumes up to 200 m3. The
tanks are insulated either with glass wool (thickness: 13–30 cm, leading
to R-values in the range 3.4–7.9 m2 K W–1) or with a foam-type in-
sulation, the technical details of which could not be found. The cost of a
32 m3 tank – with integrated internal heat exchangers for the solar and
DHW circuits – is about 38,000 € (excl. VAT) or roughly 1200 €/m3
[59]. At a tank diameter of 2.4 m, the cost of insulating this tank with
glass wool (assuming a 30-cm thick layer and the specific cost given in
Table 2) would be about 2400 € – i.e. roughly 6% of the total cost of the
tank. Another example of conventional insulation materials applied to
STES systems is the 23 m3 hot water tank that was briefly described in
Section 2 – an elliptical concrete tank completely buried underground
next to a single-family house in Galway, Ireland [40]. An economic
analysis of this system revealed that the total costs of the thermal in-
sulation adds up to 3060 €, or roughly 25% of the total costs of the
storage tank [60]. As of 2016, the total cost of the tank (including ex-
cavation costs and pipework) was 10,300 € (excl. VAT) or 450 €/m3.
The tank is externally insulated with 20 cm of PUR spray insulation and
40 cm of EPS on the walls. The top of the tank is insulated with 40 cm of
EPS and 8 cm of PUR spray insulation. Additionally, the tank sits on
60 cm of EPS to insulate the bottom. The overall R-value of the thermal
ρ [kg m–3] Tmax [°C] σcc [kPa] Refs.
65–300 90 45–120 [61,86,113–115]
3–350 750 ~0–5000 [61,86,90,113,114,116,117]
25–100 120 100–500 [31,52,54,86,114,115,118]
20–80 75 150–700 [52,86,115,118,119]
10–50 80 60–260 [52,86,115,118–120]
8–150 500 15–80 [50,52,86,114,115,118]
13–240 750 15–80 [50,52,115,121]
100–200 > 400 400–1600 [86,122–126]
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W. Villasmil et al. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 103 (2019) 71–84

Fig. 3. Thermal conductivity of thermal insulation materials (dry, at 20 °C). The dots represent average values and the bars indicate the range of values found in the
literature. Numerical values and references are given in Table 1.

Table 2
Specific material cost of an insulating layer with an R-value of 10 m2 K W–1.
Except for VIP, listed λ-values correspond to means from the range specified in
Table 1. For VIP, a long-term value (> 25 years of aging) of 8 mW m–1 K–1 is
typically deemed representative for commercial VIPs.
Insulation material λ [mW m–1 K–1] Cost [€ m–2] Refs.

EPS 35 32 [47,114,127]
Rock wool 40 36 [127–131]
Glass wool 38 43 [129–131]
XPS 33 46 [47,127]
Foam glass (gravel) 50 50 [125,132]
PUR-PIR 25 59 [47,114,128]
Foam glass (slab) 50 131 [124,125,132]
VIP 8 247 [56,75,114,133–135]
Silica aerogels 12 547 [56,87,114]

is comprised of an open, highly porous core that is evacuated and

Fig. 4. Material cost (top) and insulation thickness (bottom) required to
achieve an R-value of 10 m2 K W–1 with various thermal insulation materials.
Solid dots represent average cost values, while the bars indicate the range found
in the literature. Numerical values and the corresponding references can be
extracted from Table 2.
insulation was calculated at 17 m2 K W–1 [40].
3.1.2. Vacuum insulation panels
Among the materials listed in Table 1, vacuum insulation panels
(VIP) exhibit the lowest thermal conductivity (as low as 4 mW m–1 K–1)
and represent one of the most promising high-performance thermal
insulation solutions on today’s market [61]. A commercial VIP product
wrapped in a sealed envelope of several metallized polymer laminate
layers. Some of the most commonly used core materials include fiber
glass, PUR-foam, polystyrene foam, expanded cork, expanded perlite,
precipitated silica, fumed silica, and aerogels [62,63]. Among these,
fumed silica is by far the most commonly used core-material for VIPs in
the building sector by virtue of its high life expectancy (> 50 years) and
its very low thermal conductivity [64] – the latter as a result of the very
small pore size. VIPs are characterized by their fragile nature and re-
quire protection against perforation of the foil; puncturing the VIP
envelope causes an increase in thermal conductivity to about
20 mW m–1 K–1 [65]. As experience in the building sector has shown,
the effective thermal conductivity of VIPs not only depends on their
construction (core material and envelope), but also on installation-de-
pendent thermal bridging effects [66,67]. A study on vacuum-insulated
building facades has shown that the effect of thermal bridges strongly
depends on the thermal contact of the VIPs with the wall [68]. TES
systems based on cylindrical tanks will thus require the use of curved
VIPs to allow a good thermal contact between the panels and the tank
wall. Table 3 shows a list of commercial VIP products available in

75
W. Villasmil et al.
curved or flexible shapes that may be suitable for TES applications.
In addition to its high cost (247 €/m2), one of the major drawbacks
of VIPs is the irreversible increase of thermal conductivity due to dif-
fusion of water vapor and air through the envelope into the VIP core.
Numerous studies have been conducted with the aim of predicting the
service life of VIPs as a function of a variety of climate factors such as
temperature, humidity, and pressure [69–71]. In spite of the irrever-
sible increase of thermal conductivity, VIPs continue to demonstrate
their ability to offer improved long-term thermal performance as
compared to conventional thermal insulation materials. In Canada, for
example, VIP composites used for a roofing application performed
consistently over a period of 5 years (within a 10% margin of its ori-
ginal condition) even though operating temperatures as high as 58 °C
were reached during the summer season [72]. Similarly, a 5-year in-situ
experimental assessment conducted in Sweden showed no sign of per-
formance degradation of VIPs installed in a retrofitted exterior wall
operating at maximum temperatures exceeding 35 °C [73]. Monitoring
data from another flat roof with VIP insulation showed that – assuming
a realistic initial thermal conductivity of 4.5 mW m–1 K–1 – a long-term
value (after 25 years) of 7 mW m–1 K–1 can be deemed representative for
commercial fumed-silica VIPs with polymer-based barrier [74]. In a
further recent experimental study, the thermal performance of com-
mercially available fumed silica based VIPs was estimated between 7.9
and 8.1 mW m–1 K–1 after 25 years of service [75].
So far, only a limited number of studies have been conducted to
investigate the thermal performance of VIPs at higher temperatures. An
experimental study conducted with a 32-month-aged fumed-silica VIP
specimen showed that the thermal conductivity of a 10-mm-thick panel
increased from 5.4 mW m–1 K–1 at 23 °C to 7.0 mW m–1 K–1 at 53 °C [76]
– in absolute terms a small increase of 1.6 mW m–1 K–1 due to the 30 °C
temperature increase. Prototype VIPs that are compatible with high-
temperature applications above 100 °C have been developed by em-
ploying HR-CPP (polypropylene) and PBT (polybutylene terephthalate)
films for the panel envelope [77]. By using a PBT film, the authors
demonstrated that even when keeping a VIP specimen at temperatures
as high as 105 °C for 200 days (λinitial = 3.5 mW m–1 K–1), it was pos-
sible to maintain a thermal conductivity lower than 6.5 mW m–1 K–1 at
the end of the test. Furthermore, when using PBT in combination with
hydrophobic zeolite (an adsorbent able to perform better at high tem-
peratures), the final thermal conductivity of the panel could be limited
to 5 mW m–1 K–1. In contrast, the thermal conductivity of a conven-
tional aluminum-coated VIP exposed to 105 °C deteriorated very ra-
pidly, reaching 20 mW m–1 K–1 after only 80 days of testing.
The only documented application of VIPs in a STES system appears
to be a 100 m3 hot-water tank built in Sengenthal, Germany [78]. The
heat storage was made out of eight precast concrete elements forming
an inner octagon that allowed flat VIPs to be installed on the inside
walls of the storage. Thermal insulation consisted of two 1-cm thick EPS
layers and a 5-cm thick VIP core. An ethylene propylene diene
monomer (EPDM) film sack was used to store the water at a maximum
temperature of 82 °C and avoid the direct contact between the thermal
insulation and the hot water. Theoretical analysis prior to the storage
construction had predicted a total R-value of 9.1 m2 K W–1. Measured
data led to a calculated R-value of 2.8 m2 K W–1 – i.e. only about 30% of
the original estimation. The large discrepancy was attributed to thermal
bridges and defects in the thermal insulation.
3.1.3. Silica aerogels
Together with VIPs, aerogels are regarded as one of the most pro-
mising state-of-the-art thermal insulation materials, although their
commercial availability is still very limited [79]. Silica aerogel is a
highly translucent material consisting of a nanostructured SiO2 net-
work, with porosities of up to 99.8% and low thermal conductivity
values. At high temperatures (typically above 200 °C), radiative heat
transfer is known to become dominant and deteriorate the insulating
capability of silica aerogels due to their low extinction coefficient at
76
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 103 (2019) 71–84
wavelengths between 3 and 8 µm [80,81]. Infrared opacifier doping
(e.g. with carbon black, SiC, ZrO2 and TiO2) can reduce the radiative
component and improve the insulating capability of silica aerogels
[82]. The advantage of using aerogels for low-temperature thermal
energy storage (< 100 °C) is that the radiative component is still small
enough to eliminate the need for opacifier doping. This in turn reduces
the complexity and consequently the cost of synthesizing the material.
Silica aerogels are particularly attractive as insulation material in
windows [83] because of their high visual transmittance and in solar
collectors [84] because of their high solar energy transmittance (88%
for a 10-mm-thick packed bed of highly-translucent aerogel granulate
[85]). By virtue of the Knudsen effect and because of their intrinsic
small characteristic pore diameter (typically 5–100 nm [86]), aerogels
exhibit thermal conductivity values as low as 14 mW m–1 K–1 at ambient
pressure and 4 mW m–1 K–1 at 50 mbar [87]. Silica aerogels are char-
acterized by their vulnerability to moisture, extreme fragility, and low
tensile strength. Their mechanical properties can be improved by
methods of mechanical reinforcing, however, usually at the expense of
increasing their density and thereby their thermal conductivity [88].
Aerogels are very strong in compression, which is why they are typi-
cally used in a sandwich construction, e.g. between two sheets of glass
[89]. Their compressive strength (σcc), as shown in Table 1, is very
sensitive to the material density. Aerogels with densities greater than
200 kg/m3 or smaller than 100 kg/m3 have been found to be either too
brittle or too ductile, while only those with intermediate densities ex-
hibit elastic properties that allow them to recover their original di-
mensions after being compressed [90].
By far the biggest hurdle in the application of silica aerogels as
thermal insulation is their very high cost. As shown in Table 2, the cost
of silica aerogels (547 €/m2) is roughly between 10 and 20 times higher
than that of traditional thermal insulation materials such as EPS, glass
wool, or PUR (32–59 €/m2). Compared to VIPs (247 €/m2), aerogels
cost twice as much for the same thermal resistance. Increasing com-
mercialization is expected to drop the market price of aerogels below
the 1200 €/m3 mark [56], which would bring their price to the current
levels of VIPs. Meanwhile there is no significant advantage of using
aerogels instead of VIPs (similar λ values) for TES systems under the
scenarios illustrated in Fig. 1. Aerogels may however find a niche
market in directly-irradiated solar TES concepts capable of exploiting
their translucent nature and high solar transmittance characteristics. An
example of such an application has been described in [91], where a 12-
mm-thick silica aerogel tile applied to the upper surface of a solar tank
(a shallow solar-pond water heater) allowed the water to be heated to
temperatures as high as 56 °C during a typical summer day.
3.2. Double-wall vacuum envelope packed with powder particles (evacuated
powders)
Traditionally, TES tanks have been insulated by applying thermal
insulation materials on the storage walls. The disadvantage of this ap-
proach – especially when using conventional materials – is that a large
insulation thickness is required to achieve the low R-values required in
Table 3
Commercial VIP products available in curved or flexible shapes.
Manufacturer Product λ [mW m–1 K–1] Tmax [°C] Refs.
va-Q-tec va-Q-pro < 3.5a 70 [136]
Unifrax Excelfrax 200 4.3b 90c [137]
Porextherm Vacupor NT 4.8d 80 [138]
TURNA TURVAC Si < 4.5a 80 [139]
NanoPore VIP 4.0a 120 [140]
a
No specific information given.
b
4.3 mW m–1 K–1 @ 90 °C / 4.0 mW m–1 K–1 @ 20 °C.
c
VIPs for applications up to 1000 °C available on a non-standard basis.
d
4.7 mW m–1 K–1 @ 90 °C / 4.0 mW m–1 K–1 @ 20 °C.
W. Villasmil et al.
Table 4
Properties of selected evacuated powder mixtures. λeff represents the total effective thermal conductivity at 20 °C and pg < 0.01 mbar. Densities are of powders
compacted at 1 bar. Data for ρ, p1/2, and λ from [102]. The mean pore size (dp) was computed using the measured p1/2 values and Eq. (2).
Powder contents ρ [kg m–3]
Perlite 219
Perlite + c.b. + p. SiO2 220
Perlite + Fe3O4 + f. SiO2 306
p. SiO2 180
p. SiO2 + FeTiO3 213
p. SiO2 + c.b. 182
f. SiO2 + TiO2 240
c.b.: carbon black; p. SiO2: precipitated silica; f. SiO2: fumed silica.
STES systems. This in turn translates into a large volume occupied by
the thermal insulation, leading to important penalty costs that result
when the STES system is placed inside a residential building. In con-
ventional insulation materials like glass wool, rock wool or organic
foams, the total heat transfer is dominated by the contribution of the
gas within the hollow spaces.
Alternatively, the thermal insulation can be realized within the wall
of the storage as illustrated in Fig. 2b. Here, the insulation layer is
realized by creating an evacuated powder-containing envelope between
two concentric vessels. Similarly to a conventional Dewar flask, an
evacuated envelope makes use of vacuum to suppress the heat transfer
due to gaseous conduction. The concept of filling the vacuum space
with powders was patented by Stanley back in 1912 [92], driven by the
motivation to achieve a given degree of insulation at a much softer
vacuum (i.e. a less reduced pressure in the evacuated space). A softer
vacuum alleviates the mechanical stress to which the tank is subjected
and consequently reduces its construction cost. This type of thermal
insulation – also known as evacuated powders – has been proven and
widely used in the field of cryogenic engineering [93,94]. In an evac-
uated powder, the effective thermal conductivity is reduced by virtue of
the so-called Knudsen effect, which describes the gaseous conduction in
a porous media as a function of the gas pressure and the characteristic
pore size [95]. According to the Knudsen equation, the gaseous con-
ductivity can be suppressed if the mean free path of the gas molecules is
constrained by individual pore walls. This condition is met when the
pore size becomes smaller or comparable to the mean free path of the
gas molecules (~70 nm for air [96]), which is for example the case for
fumed silica powder (pore size: 30–100 nm [36]). In this case, the
collisions between the gas molecules and the pore wall dominate over
the collisions between the gas molecules, resulting in a reduction of the
thermal conductivity of the confined gas, g . The latter can be described
by [97]:
0
g =
g conductivity was obtained with pure perlite (no opacifier, d p ~ 20 µm)
p1/2
1+
pg
where is the thermal conductivity of the non-confined gas, pg is the
0
g for this application due to its low cost. The price of fumed silica, for
gas pressure, and p1/2 is a characteristic gas pressure at which g is half
of g0 . The latter can be computed from [98]:
kB T
p1/2 =
2 0 dp
where is a gas-dependent factor (1.6 for air), kB is the Boltzmann
constant, T is the gas temperature, 0 is the collision cross section
(4.3·10–19 m2 for air [99]), and d p is the mean pore diameter. Corre-
lations to compute g0 and can be found in [98]. Fig. 9 shows the
thermal conductivity of air ( g ) – as calculated using Eq. (1) – as a
function of the gas pressure ( pg ) and the mean pore size (d p ). For a given
d p , the plot shows how g can be decreased by reducing the gas pres-
sure. For example, using expanded perlite (dp= 10 µm), g could be
decreased from 23 mW m–1 K–1 at 100 mbar to about 2 mW m–1 K–1 at 1
mbar. As illustrated with the various curves of different d p , the
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 103 (2019) 71–84
p1/2 [mbar] dp [μm] λeff [mW m–1 K–1]
5 20 6.5
20 5 5.9
150 0.7 5.4
220 0.5 4.2
200 0.5 3.2
190 0.5 2.5
590 0.2 4.2
influence of the pore size on the thermal conductivity is also sub-
stantial. At 100 mbar, the thermal conductivity obtained with 10-μm
expanded perlite powder would be 23 mW m–1 K–1 as compared to
0.72 mW m–1 K–1 obtained with 30-nm fumed silica powder. Achieving
–1 –1
g = 0.72 mW m K with 10-μm expanded perlite would require the
gas pressure to be reduced to 0.3 mbar.
In many cases, the total heat transfer within porous materials can be
described by the superposition of the single contributions of the various
heat transfer mechanisms, leading to the following expression for the
total effective thermal conductivity, eff [100]:
eff = g (T , pg ) + s (T ) + r (T ) + c ( s, pg ) (3)
where s is the thermal conductivity of the solid phase, r is the ra-
diative thermal conductivity, and c is the solid–gas coupling thermal
conductivity. Suppressing the heat transfer in the gaseous phase, g , has
a substantial impact on the reduction of the total thermal conductivity
of an evacuated powder. For example, with fumed silica powder com-
pressed to about 200 kg/m3 and pg < 1 mbar, the heat transfer is limited
to solid conduction (2–3 mW m–1 K–1), and thermal radiation
(~1 mW m–1 K–1 when adding an opacifier), which leads to a total
thermal conductivity of about 4 mW m–1 K–1 [101]. The potential of
using other materials is illustrated in Table 4, which summarizes the
measured eff -values for fully evacuated powders of various composi-
tions at 20 °C and pg <0.01 mbar – at such low pressures, g ~ 0 for up to
d p ~100 µm as shown in Fig. 9. Densities of the listed powders (com-
pacted at 1 bar) range roughly between 180 and 300 kg/m3. Here, the
radiative component ( r ) was suppressed by adding carbon black, iron
oxide, or TiO2 as opacifiers. The mean pore size, d p , ranges between
200 nm (f. SiO2 + TiO2) and 20 µm (perlite), as estimated using the p1/2
values measured in [102] and Eq. (2). Total thermal conductivities as
low as 2.5 mW m–1 K–1 can be achieved by using precipitated silica
powders (p. SiO2) opacified with carbon black. The highest thermal
at 6.5 mW m–1 K–1. In spite of its higher thermal conductivity as com-
(1)
pared to the other powders, expanded perlite is an attractive material
example, can be up to 10 times higher than expanded perlite [63,103].
An example of evacuated powders applied in the field of TES is a
12 m3 hot-water experimental storage built by ITW [103]. The storage
tank was insulated with a mixture of 70 wt% coarse-grained expanded
(2) perlite (ρ = 73 kg/m3, 2 mm maximum grain size) and 30 wt% fumed
silica (ρ = 43 kg/m3, 10–15 nm grain size) evacuated to 1.1 mbar. The
density of the mixture was 97 kg/m3 and its thermal conductivity – as
measured previously using a guarded cylinder apparatus – was found in
the range 10–11 mW m–1 K–1 for pressures between 0.02 and 1 mbar.
The hot water was stored at a mean temperature of 57 °C and the mean
temperature difference between the storage and the surroundings was
38 °C. The mean temperature drop of the storage over a period of 17
days was about 0.25 K per day. The authors suggested that pressures of
at least 1 mbar would be most suitable for large thermal energy stores
as their experience with the 12 m3 tank showed the difficulties of
77
W. Villasmil et al.
achieving lower vacuum pressures at high temperatures.
Another example of an application of evacuated powders in a STES
system is a 16.4 m3 hot-water tank prototype built by the Bavarian
Center for Applied Energy Research [104–107]. The prototype consists
of two concentric cylindrical steel containers separated by an annular
gap (dgap ) of 20 cm, leading to a total insulation volume of 8.4 m3. The
gap was filled with expanded perlite (Technoperl® – C 1,5; unit price ~
50 €/m3) and evacuated to 0.08 mbar. The hot water was stored in the
inner tank at a maximum temperature of 90 °C. The storage tank had a
total height of 6 m and a ratio h/d of 2.5. The expanded perlite had an
uncompressed bulk density of 53 kg/m3 and a typical pore size in the
range 10–50 µm. In the evacuated gap, the actual bulk density of the
powder was about 92 kg/m3 as a result of the self-compression during
the perlite filling process. Based on heat loss measurements conducted
over a period of 10 days, the effective thermal conductivity of the
evacuated tank envelope was estimated at 9.2 mW m–1 K–1.
Using measured data, the contributions of the various heat transfer
mechanisms to the total effective thermal conductivity (see Eq. (3))
were estimated in [105]: g / eff = 0.17, s / eff = 0.55, r / eff = 0.27,
and c / eff = 0.003. While the solid phase contributed with more than
50% of the total heat transfer, the solid-gas coupling effect accounted
for less than 1% of the total heat transfer. Given the direct dependence
of g and c on the gas pressure (see Eq. (3)), it becomes of major
importance to minimize gas leakages into the evacuated space to avoid
a significant pressure increase and consequently a detriment in per-
formance. The leakage rate of the tank prototype was estimated at
2.3·10–8 mbar m3 s–1, which is expected to lead to an annual pressure
increase of 0.085 mbar. At this rate, the authors estimated that the
contribution of g + c would increase from 1.6 to 16 m2 K W–1 (i.e.
2 –1
eff ~14 m K W ) over a period of 20 years [105], which would
translate into a decrease of the R-value from 22 to 8.5 m2 K W–1. As
compared to vacuum insulation panels, an important advantage of a
double-wall vacuum insulation jacket is that it can allow a periodic re-
evacuation of the evacuated volume in order to maintain the low
thermal conductivity of the envelope during the entire lifetime of the
storage system.
4. Comparative analysis and discussion
Based on the material properties and cost parameters presented in
the previous sections, a parametric economic analysis was conducted to
quantify the potential savings that may be achieved by using state-of-
the-art insulation materials in thermal energy storage applications.
Among the group of materials investigated (see Fig. 4), VIP and silica
aerogels stand out as those with lowest thermal conductivity. Compared
to VIP, aerogels cost twice as much for the same thermal resistance and
offer no advantages for the applications considered in this study.
Compared to traditional thermal insulation materials such as EPS, glass
wool, or PUR (32–59 €/m2), VIP costs between four and eight times
more (247 €/m2). As illustrated in Fig. 4, the main advantage of VIP is
the reduced thickness required to achieve a given thermal resistance.
While a VIP requires a thickness of 8 cm to provide a thermal resistance
of 10 m2 K W–1, a layer of glass wool would require a thickness of
38 cm, i.e. roughly five times more. The use of VIP becomes thus ad-
vantageous when the economic benefit of saving living space – by
virtue of the thinner insulation – outweighs the extra cost of VIP itself.
To this conclusion came [30,31] when assessing the economic potential
of using VIP in the interior of passive houses and zero energy buildings.
By conducting an analogous analysis under the scenario illustrated in
Fig. 1a, it can be expected that potential space savings in thermal en-
ergy storage applications are even more significant than in building
applications, given that the thickness required to insulate a hot-water
storage tank is about two to three times greater than the insulation
required in passive houses [108].
The benefit of using VIP to insulate a TES system is illustrated in
Fig. 5, in which the fraction of the total volume occupied by the thermal
78
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 103 (2019) 71–84
insulation is shown for a cylindrical storage tank. Thermal insulation is
assumed to be applied uniformly (i.e. constant thickness) on the cy-
lindrical wall as well as at the top and bottom of the storage. Results in
Fig. 5 are shown for a tank with a height-to-diameter ratio (h/d) in the
range 2.7–6.0, insulated with glass wool or VIP such that R-value
= 10 m2 K W–1. Glass wool is considered as reference material in this
analysis as it is the most common insulation used in buildings and
thermal energy storage applications. The h/d ratio of the tank is cal-
culated as a function of the storage volume such that: (1) h/d is as close
as possible to 4, which can be regarded as a suitable aspect ratio for the
scenario depicted in Fig. 1a, and (2) the total height of the tank (i.e.
including the insulation at the top and bottom) equals a multiple of the
floor-to-floor height of the building. The latter constraint is introduced
to minimize the total area of living space lost through the incorporation
of the storage. Here, the tank is assumed to be incorporated in a
building with a characteristic floor-to-floor height of 3 m. The resulting
h/d ratio is shown in Fig. 6 as a function of the storage volume, for a
tank insulated with VIP or glass wool. Note that the steps in Figs. 5 and
6 are the result of shifts in the number of floors occupied by the storage
(indicated by the circled numbers in Fig. 6). For example, a 45 m3
storage tank insulated with glass wool would occupy 3 floors at htank
= 8.24 m, dtank = 2.64 m, and h/d = 3.1, whereas a slightly larger tank
with 46 m3 would extend through 4 floors at htank = 11.24 m, dtank
= 2.28 m, and h/d = 4.9. The difference in the h/d ratio depending on
the insulation material is a consequence of the difference in thickness of
the insulation layer at the top and bottom of the tank (glass wool:
38 cm, VIP: 8 cm).
Fig. 5 shows how the volume fraction of the thermal insulation
(Vinsulation/Vtotal) becomes increasingly small for increasing storage
volumes, as a result of the decreasing surface-to-volume ratio (A/V).
While a 10 m3 storage exhibits an A/V ratio of 2.9, this ratio reduces to
0.7 for a 1000 m3 storage. The space taken by thermal insulation can be
expected to represent a significant fraction of the total volume occupied
by the storage when using conventional materials – as high as 61% for a
10 m3 storage insulated with glass wool, as shown in Fig. 5. For a
100 m3 storage, the volume fraction of a glass wool insulation layer
would be 38%. In this case, the use of VIP can drastically reduce this
fraction to 10%, leading to space savings of 49 m3 or 14.5 m2 (3.6 m2
per floor). Using this figure and a VIP cost of 247 €/m2 (see Table 2), it
is estimated that the use of VIP becomes economically advantageous
when the value of living space exceeds 1960 €/m2 – this is the market
Fig. 5. Fraction of the total volume occupied by the thermal insulation in a
cylindrical TES tank. Results are shown for glass wool and VIP, for a tank with a
height-to-diameter ratio h/d ~ 4. The actual h/d ratios are shown in Fig. 6. Vtotal
= Vstorage + Vinsulation; R-value = 10 m2 K W–1.
W. Villasmil et al.
Fig. 6. Height-to-diameter ratio of a cylindrical storage tank incorporated in-
side a building with a characteristic floor-to-floor height of 3 m. The tank is
sized such that the total height (i.e. including the insulation layer at the top and
bottom of the tank) equals a multiple of the floor-to-floor height. Circled
numbers indicate the number of floors occupied by the storage tank. Results are
shown for a tank insulated with VIP and glass wool.
value of real estate at the break-even point (MVBEP). This condition
would easily be satisfied, for example, in Madrid (3353 €/m2), Berlin
(3510 €/m2), Zurich (9600 €/m2), or London (7145 – 16538 €/m2)
[109,110]. The MVBEP represents the minimum value of real estate
above which the use of VIP leads to cost savings as compared to the use
of glass wool:
(Atank,VIP ·C10,VIP Atank,GW · C10,GW )·
R-value
MVBEP = 10 m2 K W 1
Areal estate,GW Areal estate,VIP
where Atank represents the area of the tank covered with thermal in-
sulation, Areal-estate is the area of real estate occupied by the thermal
insulation (lost living space), C10 is the material cost of thermal in-
sulation given in Table 2 for a reference thermal resistance of 10 m2 K
W–1, and R-value is the actual thermal resistance to be provided by the
Fig. 7. Left: market value of real estate at break-even point (MVBEP), as a function of the storage volume, the insulation thermal resistance (R-value), and λVIP. MVBEP
represents the real estate value (€/m2) above which the use of VIP becomes economically advantageous against glass wool. Right: cost savings (€ per m3 of storage
volume) achieved in Zurich (real estate value = 9600 €/m2) when using VIP instead of glass wool to insulate a TES.
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 103 (2019) 71–84
thermal insulation.
Further cost reduction of the TES system can be achieved by opti-
mizing the R-value as a function of the economic value of the energy
stored, the material and installation costs of the tank and thermal in-
sulation, and the market value of real estate. Such an optimization is
not included in this paper. Instead, a straightforward parametric ana-
lysis is presented here with the aim of estimating the magnitude of the
potential savings that may be achieved through the use of novel thermal
insulation materials. Fig. 7 (left) shows the market value of real estate at
the break-even point (MVBEP) as a function of the storage volume for
two different R-values. Given the uncertainty in the long-term perfor-
mance of VIPs at higher temperatures, results are presented for λVIP
= 8 mW m–1 K–1 (baseline reference value shown in Table 2) and for
λVIP = 12 mW m–1 K–1 (i.e. 50% degradation) with the aim of quanti-
fying the sensitivity of the analysis to this parameter. Note that the
impact of increasing λVIP is two-fold, since both volume and specific
cost of the thermal insulation increase (C10,VIP increases to 371 €/m2
with λVIP = 12 mW m–1 K–1) as a result of the increased insulating
thickness required to achieve the same thermal resistance. The results
presented in Fig. 7 show that higher R-values and smaller storage vo-
lumes favor the use of VIP, as the use of thermal insulation – in terms of
m3 insulation per m3 effective storage – is more intensive in these cases.
Fig. 7 (right) shows the cost savings that could be achieved by using VIP
instead of glass wool to insulate a TES system incorporated in a re-
sidential building in Zurich. At λVIP = 8 mW m–1 K–1, using VIP to in-
sulate a 100 m3 TES tank with an R-value of 10 m2 K W–1 would lead to
savings of about 1100 €/m3 or 110,000 € in absolute terms. At λVIP
= 12 mW m–1 K–1, the cost savings would be about 760 €/m3 – still
significant, but 30% lower compared to the baseline due to the 50%
increase in the thermal conductivity of VIP.
As a final economic evaluation, Fig. 8 provides a comparative
overview of the combined costs of (1) the thermal insulation material
(excl. installation costs) and (2) the space occupied by the thermal in-
sulation for a 100-m3 cylindrical TES tank integrated inside a re-
sidential building. The insulation thermal resistance corresponds to the
reference R-value of 10 m2 K W–1, while λ and cost values correspond to
those presented in Table 2. Results in Fig. 8 are shown for two market
(4) values of real estate: 3000 €/m2 and 6000 €/m2. As compared to VIP
and PUR-PIR, the combined costs that result from using conventional
thermal insulation materials (XPS, EPS, glass wool, and rock wool) are
rather unfavorable due to the high cost fractions associated to the in-
tensive utilization of living space in the building. In contrast – and in
spite of its high material cost – VIP arises as the most cost-effective
79
W. Villasmil et al. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 103 (2019) 71–84

Fig. 8. Combined costs of thermal insulation (light grey area) and living space occupied by the thermal insulation (dark grey area) for a 100-m3 cylindrical TES tank
incorporated inside a residential building. Percentage values inside the bars indicate the cost fraction associated to living space. Percentage values on top of the bars
indicate the change in the combined cost as compared to glass wool. R-value = 10 m2 K W–1, while λ and cost values correspond to those presented in Table 2. Results
are shown for two market values of real estate: 3000 €/m2 (left) and 6000 €/m2 (right).

materials, the method of evacuated powders reviewed in Section 3.2

offers the possibility to bury a storage tank underground (scenario
shown in Fig. 1b), thereby eliminating the need for valuable living
space inside the building. Thermal insulation materials applied on the
outside of the storage cannot offer this solution because of the intake of
soil moisture that would lead to significant degradation in thermal
conductivity. On the other hand, if the tank is to be incorporated inside
the building (scenario illustrated in Fig. 1a), the method of evacuated
powders can offer the potential of substantially reducing the volume
fraction of the thermal insulation. Experiments with a 16.4 m3 hot-
water tank equipped with a double-wall vacuum insulation jacket
showed that an effective thermal conductivity of 9.2 mW m–1 K–1 can be
achieved across the evacuated envelope [105]. At an envelope gap
thickness of 20 cm, this translates into an R-value of 22 m2 K W–1. Using
an analysis analogous to that applied above for VIP, Fig. 10 shows the

Fig. 9. Thermal conductivity of air (λg) at 20 °C calculated using Eq. (1) as a

function of the air pressure (pg) and the mean pore diameter of the powder (dp).
The shaded regions show λg when the powder is expanded perlite (dp =
10–50 µm [105]) and fumed silica (dp = 30–100 nm [113]).

option by virtue of the significant space that can be saved due to its low
thermal conductivity. Using VIPs when the value of real estate is 6000
€/m2 could allow reducing the combined costs by as much as 52%
(59,000 € savings in absolute terms) as compared to the use of con-
ventional insulation materials. Alternatively, the high-performance
PUR-PIR foams (regarded as a transitional material between conven-
tional insulation materials and the so-called “superinsulation” pro-
ducts) could be an attractive alternative to VIP, especially for scenarios
in which the value of real estate falls in a lower range. For a real estate
value of 3000 €/m2 (see Fig. 8), the use of PUR-PIR can even lead to
greater cost savings (30%) as compared to VIP (25%), with the addi-
tional benefit of better thermal stability and longer lifetime. The use of
Fig. 10. Fraction of the total volume occupied by the thermal insulation in a
silica aerogels, as compared to the more established VIP and PUR-PIR
cylindrical TES tank (h/d ratio = 2.5). Results are shown for an evacuated
products does not appear to be economically favorable under these envelope [105] as compared to the use of glass wool. Vtotal = Vstorage
scenarios. + Vinsulation; R-value = 22 m2 K W–1. Insulation is applied on the cylindrical
In contrast to VIP, PUR-PIR, and conventional thermal insulation wall as well as at the top and bottom of the tank.

80
W. Villasmil et al.
Fig. 11. Cost of a vacuum-insulated thermal energy storage tank (excl. VAT) as
a function of its storage volume. Data points were taken from Refs. [111,112].
Fitted power-law expression: y in k€ and x in m3.
volume fraction of an evacuated jacket as compared to that of a glass
wool insulation layer in a cylindrical tank with the same characteristics
as the 16.4 m3 prototype (i.e. h/d = 2.5 and R-value = 22 m2 K W–1). In
the actual prototype, the insulation envelope represented 34% of the
total volume (25 m3), whereas insulating the tank with conventional
glass wool would have led to a total volume of 66 m3 and an insulation
volume fraction of 75%. In other words, the total volume occupied by
the storage (tank plus thermal insulation) would have been 4 times the
effective storage volume if glass wool would have been used.
The cost of commercially available vacuum-insulated thermal en-
ergy storage tanks (excl. VAT) is shown in Fig. 11 as a function of the
storage volume. Data points were taken from two independent studies
[111,112] and fitted to the power-law expression shown in Fig. 11. A
cost comparative analysis between a vacuum-insulated tank and a tank
insulated with the materials discussed in Section 3.1 goes beyond the
scope of this study. Properties and reference costs presented in this
paper are intended to serve as a basis for economic evaluations of
specific projects on thermal energy storage.
5. Conclusions
Today, thermal energy storage systems are typically insulated using
conventional materials such as mineral wools due to their reliability,
ease of installation, and low cost. The main drawback of these materials
is their relatively high thermal conductivity, which results in a large
insulation thickness. Alternatively, the use of VIP or PUR-PIR foams can
be favorable when the economic value of saving living space outweighs
the extra cost of the thermal insulation itself. For a storage tank of
100 m3, for example, the use of VIP can become profitably against glass
wool when the market value of real estate exceeds 1960 €/m2.
Insulating such a tank with VIP in a dwelling with a real estate value of
9600 €/m2 would lead to cost savings of 110,000 € as compared to the
use of conventional glass wool. As compared to VIP, PUR-PIR foams
offer a more reliable solution because of the uncertainties associated to
the irreversible performance degradation of VIP. To reduce this un-
certainty, additional research is required to improve and demonstrate
the long-term stability of VIP at temperatures suitable for TES.
While the method of evacuated powders has been used for decades
81
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 103 (2019) 71–84
in the field of cryogenics, its application at higher temperatures can
offer significant advantages for TES. First, and most importantly, it can
allow the storage to be buried underground, thereby eliminating the
need for valuable living space inside residential buildings. Conventional
insulating materials cannot offer this solution because of the intake of
soil moisture that would lead to a significant increase in thermal con-
ductivity. In contrast to VIP, the use of evacuated powders in a double-
wall tank construction can allow maintaining the low thermal con-
ductivity of the insulating jacket through a periodic re-evacuation of
the vacuum chamber.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Swiss Federal Office of
Energy for financial contributions to this work. This research is part of
the activities of the Swiss Competence Center for Energy Research on
Heat and Electricity Storage (SCCER HaE), which is financially sup-
ported by the Swiss Innovation Agency – Innosuisse.
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