Building integrated energy storage opportunities in China

China has a big population and all countryside are being urbanized recently, more and more buildings are being built with careful considerations of energy saving. Building integrated energy systems are thought to be of priority importance. There are extended energy storage researches and developments for buildings, such as building materials for stabilization of room temperature using the daily and night temperature difference in north China, desiccant materials integrated with buildings used for constant relative humidity control in south China. Solar thermal energy storage using specialized design of hot water tank, phase change materials (PCMs) or pebble stones have been well studied and demonstrated, whereas chemical energy storage capability had been also considered with potential applications. The development of electric battery storage for Photovoltaic (PV) is also highlighted as it is a good opportunity for smart grid development. In modern commercial building, uninterruptible power supplies using rechargeable battery packs and thermal energy storage are currently two of the most common applications for energy storage, while other storage technologies are still at the research stage. The above development of building integrated energy storage opportunities in China are described and analyzed, some demonstration projects are shown in this paper. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.