Assessing the Reliability Benefits of Energy Storage as a Transmission Asset

TL;DR

This paper evaluates how energy storage can enhance power system reliability and compares it to traditional transmission investments through detailed modeling and probabilistic assessment.

Contribution

It introduces a combined optimization and reliability simulation framework to quantitatively compare energy storage and transmission assets for system reliability.

Findings

Energy storage can provide significant reliability benefits.

The integrated model enables cost-effective reliability assessment.

Storage's value in system reliability is quantitatively demonstrated.

Abstract

Utilizing energy storage solutions to reduce the need for traditional transmission investments has been recognized by system planners and supported by federal policies in recent years. This work demonstrates the need for detailed reliability assessment for quantitative comparison of the reliability benefits of energy storage and traditional transmission investments. First, a mixed-integer linear programming expansion planning model considering candidate transmission lines and storage technologies is solved to find the least-cost investment decisions. Next, operations under the resulting system configuration are simulated in a probabilistic reliability assessment which accounts for weather-dependent forced outages. The outcome of this work, when applied to TPPs, is to further equalize the consideration of energy storage compared to traditional transmission assets by capturing the value of storage for system reliability.