Current challenges in the energy storage often involve phase change materials. Therefore, there is a real need for accurate determinations of their intrinsic properties. Regularly, differential scanning calorimetry is used to perform such a goal. Nevertheless, to obtain fair results, one needs to consider the transfer phenomenon inside the sample and at its boundary. This implies that the geometry should be known exactly, which is usually not the case. In this paper, we propose a way to avoid such issues, by considering an equivalent spherical model. Our final goal is to obtain a simple and fast method so as to plan future identifications of the thermodynamical properties of phase change materials. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.