Bottom-up modeling of residential batteries and their effect on system-level generation cost

Abstract

The declining cost of residential battery energy storage (BES) and photovoltaic (PV) systems enable customers to significantly reduce their energy dependency from the grid. By absorbing excess PV generation, BES systems could reduce impacts associated with the ‘duck curve’. However, since off-the-shelf (OTS) BES systems are controlled for customer benefits, this absorption might be limited at times, resulting in similar duck curve effects. This work proposes a bottom-up modeling approach to demonstrate the system-level generation cost effects from residential BES systems. Using a modified IEEE 9-bus system with real anonymized smart meter data, results show that with the OTS BES control, the overall reduction in system net demand due to peak PV generation still occurs which leads to baseload generation shutting off, incurring additional costs. Alternatively, the adoption of smarter BES controls aimed at mitigating impacts on distribution networks by reducing PV exports can bring significant system-level generation cost reductions.