MELT Plates: The Abolition of Overheating in Lightweight Buildings through an Optimised form of Latent Heat Storage

Wunder, Frederik and Sonnick, Sebastian and Vetter, Tanja and Walch, Thomas and Kaufmann, Hans Rüdiger and Rädle, Matthias (2024) MELT Plates: The Abolition of Overheating in Lightweight Buildings through an Optimised form of Latent Heat Storage. KEEP ON PLANNING FOR THE REAL WORLD. Climate Change calls for Nature-based Solutions and Smart Technologies. Proceedings of REAL CORP 2024, 29th International Conference on Urban Development, Regional Planning and Information Society. pp. 413-420. ISSN 2521-3938

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Abstract

The predominant form of construction of residential and commercial buildings in the Federal Republic of Germany and other industrialized countries is that of solid construction. However, increased public awareness of the need to reduce CO2 emissions is resulting in questioning this classic way of constructing buildings as the immense energy consumption in the production of cement and concrete makes the search for alternative designs indispensable. Alternative building methods with lower CO2 impact are lightweight construction methods like prefabricated wooden buildings or even container-based buildings. One disadvantage of such buildings, even though they often are very well insulated, is their low thermal storage mass and, thus, that they overheat in summer and cool down quickly in winter, provided there are no constant sources of cooling or heat available. Technically this constant energy sources would be available in most of the cases, but as we want to use renewable energy sources, which are only available on a fluctuating basis, a thermal storage effect of the building itself is of primary interest. This paper presents the benefits and limits of so-called MELT Plates, a newly developed method of the startup MELT to apply latent heat storage technology in buildings significantly contributing to micro climate improvement, and practical applications based on relevant experimental methodologies applied by the authors. MELT’s products will make a decisive contribution to the heat transition. The previously very cost-intensive niche product “phase change material (PCM)” will become more user-friendly and significantly cheaper thanks to technical innovations and can, therefore, open up the mass market. The initial application addressed is increasing the thermal storage capacity of lightweight buildings by installing the materials in the building envelope. This serves as overheating protection in summer and in winter, through a combination with photovoltaics and/or dynamic electricity tariffs, an even more ecological and economical heating system with heat pumps is made possible. Thanks to their adaptability, MELT products are also ideally suited for numerous other applications, such as the intermediate storage of heat in industrial processes.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	overheating, climate change, temperature conditions, heat storage, prefabricated buildings
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor T Technology > TD Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering
Depositing User:	REAL CORP Administrator
Date Deposited:	29 Apr 2024 07:52
Last Modified:	10 May 2024 09:23
URI:	http://repository.corp.at/id/eprint/1107

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