Thermo-chemical Storage for Solar Space Heating in a Single-family House

Up to now solar heat has been stored mostly in well insulated water tanks. The volume of these tanks is as large as 3 m3 for relatively high solar fractions and up to 70 m3 for full solar coverage for a single-family house. Storage tanks of this size are expensive and space consuming. In new buildings, provisions can be made to accommodate large storage volumes but this type of system is not likely to become a standard heating system. For retrofitting, large storage volumes are often impossible because of its space requirements or simply the fact that large tanks cannot be brought into the building.