http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/storing-energy-as-ice/

I’ve been wondering why no one does this. In this instance, they’re time shifting cheap grid power at night to provide cooling during the day.

In the context of solar power, it seems ridiculously inefficient to use photovoltaics to generate electricity to run a motor to run a compressor to make cold when you could do it in one step.