Thermal energy storage experts at the UK-based company, Organic Heat Exchangers, are set to revolutionise global industrial cooling with the launch of EnergiVault® - a trademarked/patented, cold thermal energy storage battery and charger system providing dynamic cooling power for industrial refrigeration.

This first-of-its-kind, AI-driven technology has been developed to enhance operational resilience, reduce energy costs and lower carbon emissions for facilities that use water chillers to deliver their cooling requirements.

So how exactly is AI supporting the development of EnergiVault?

EnergiVault has an enhanced AI-based control to optimise cooling assets, energy, and carbon savings and resilience.

The technology collects real-time ambient climate and operational data through sensors to build a comprehensive data pipeline. Utilising advanced AI and machine learning techniques, such as extreme gradient boosting and deep learning, we process and transform this data to train our models. These models enable us to predict near-term cooling load demand, improving control of charge/discharge scheduling for the EnergiVault in intervals as short as 30 minutes.

By forecasting the client facility's half-hourly demand a day in advance, using time-forecasted ambient climate data from third-party APIs along with site operational and temporal data, this information feeds into an optimisation tool. This tool generates a day-ahead charging/discharging schedule, identifying opportunities to supplement sustained peak demand, manage intermittent peak demand, and replace inefficient chiller operations at partial load. The result is enhanced chiller performance and cost savings through effective load shifting.

This AI solution has been developed by O-Hx's Software Director, Dr David Kane. He said: "This is a visionary journey towards reshaping the landscape of industrial cooling, and EnergiVault is poised to be one of the fastest-growing global industrial brands during the next three years. The technology has huge potential in the global marketplace where climatic temperatures continue to rise, and its rapid and flexible discharge capabilities make it the best thermal storage system in the market."

Dr David Kane is an accomplished chartered engineer with an impressive track record of success in the energy industry. With a doctorate in optimisation and control of energy generation and storage systems, he has a wealth of experience in research and development, technology strategy, and commercial project delivery. David's core expertise lies in the area of low or zero-carbon energy technologies for generation and storage, demand side response, virtual power plants, and internet of things (IoT). His dedication to developing innovative solutions has made him a highly respected and sought-after expert in the energy industry.