Heating in buildings and industry accounts for half of the EU's energy consumption, making it the biggest energy end-use sector ahead of both transport and electricity. Approximately 75% of heating and cooling is still generated from fossil fuels. To meet the sustainability and climate-neutral energy production goals, a new paradigm of energy-producing and storing technologies is crucial. A major current challenge for utilizing renewable energy resources is their intermittency in time, causing gaps between the supply and demand. Therefore, a key enabler in improving the overall output of renewable heating and cooling technologies is an efficient thermal energy storage (TES). Based on development of new sorption materials for TES accompanied by computational analysis and prototype tests, we study what energy efficiency effects new TESs can have, and what kind of properties new materials need to have to reach the paradigm shift towards the carbon-neutral energy use.

2026

2029