Sizing Optimization of a Photovoltaic Hybrid Energy Storage System Based on Long Time-Series Simulation Considering Battery Life

Abstract

An energy storage system works in sync with a photovoltaic system to effectively alleviate the intermittency in the photovoltaic output. Owing to its high power density and long life, supercapacitors make the battery–supercapacitor hybrid energy storage system (HESS) a good solution. This study considers the particularity of annual illumination due to climate conditions in Harbin, China. A global optimal PV-HESS sizing method is proposed by constructing a PV-HESS operating cost model and taking the annual system operating cost as the objective function. To consider the effect of battery life degradation due to different charge and discharge rates and charge and discharge times, a semi-empirical model based on the Arrhenius model was used to quantify the battery life degradation. Based on the effects of different seasons and different photovoltaic panel sizes, batteries, and supercapacitors on the optimization results, four scenarios are proposed. The feasibility of the system configuration corresponding to the four scenarios is discussed, and an optimal sizing configuration of the system is obtained. The simulation results show that the proposed method can effectively balance the degradation of the ESS due to irregular charging and discharging and determine the minimum operating cost and a reasonable sizing configuration of the system.