Abstract
Distributed energy storage is a solution for increasing self-consumption of variable renewable energy such as solar and wind energy at the end user site. Small-scale energy storage systems can be centrally coordinated by "aggregation" to offer different services to the grid, such as operational flexibility and peak shaving. This paper shows how centralized coordination vs. distributed operation of residential electricity storage (home batteries) could affect the savings of owners. A hybrid method is applied to model the operation of solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery energy storage for a typical UK householder, linked with a whole-system power system model to account for long-term energy transitions. Based on results, electricity consumers can accumulate greater savings under centralized coordination by between 4 and 8% when operating no technology, by 3-11% with electricity storage alone, by 2-5% with stand-alone solar PV, while 0-2% with PV-battery combined. Centralized coordination of home batteries offers more optimized electricity prices in the system, and as such, higher private savings to all consumers. However, consumers without onsite energy technologies benefit more than PV-battery owners. Therefore, based on system-level benefits of aggregation, the regulator should incentivize prosumers with PV-battery, who are able to balance their electricity supply-demand even without central coordination, to let their storage be controlled centrally. Possible revenues of storage owners from ancillary services as well as the cost of aggregation (e.g., transaction fees charged by aggregators) are not considered in this analysis.
Highlights
This paper shows that the savings that a typical UK electricity consumer can achieve from their energy storage2 (EES) device could increase if most consumers in the electricity system allow an aggregator to coordinate their storage resources
The wider electricity system, adopt electricity storage technologies, herding behaviour could occur: many costminimizing consumers with an incentive to shift electricity demand to the same periods of low electricity prices, which will lead to an increased electricity demand and price peaks
This paper examines the possible economic impact of owning a demand-side energy storage on the savings to a typical domestic consumer equipped with a solar PV microgeneration system
Summary
The private owner of solar PV prefers to find different ways to increase their self-consumption, e.g., by storing electricity via electrical energy storage (EES) systems such as batteries [6]. Different studies have shown that pairing solar PV with batteries (PV-EES) increases self-consumption of solar energy onsite [7] and can offer significant cost savings to the private owner. From the system operator's perspective, distributed EES devices can contribute toward balancing the (distribution) grid by reducing peak contingencies [10] and grid management costs [11] This can offer the Transmission and Distribution (T&D) grid operator significant cost savings for postponing T&D investments and grid fortification measures at the low-voltage level [12,13]
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