6 Thermal Performance of Phase-Change Wallboard for Residential Cooling Cooling residential buildings in milder climates contributes significantly to peak demand mainly because of poor load factors.
Peak cooling load determines the size of equipment and the cooling source.
Thermal mass features may be used for storage only or serve as structural elements. Concrete, steel, adobe, stone, and brick all satisfy requirements for sensible heat storage. Reduction in operative temperature for double conventional and single and double PCM-treated wallboard, compared with single conventional wallboard. PCMs offer an order of magnitude increase in heat capacity, and for pure substances they discharge their heat with almost no change in temperature. PCM allows the thermal storage to become part of the building's structure, permitting substantial energy storage without changing the temperature of the room envelope.