Renewable Generation and Storage
Energy Storage Economics
Emma Elgqvist
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
August 17, 2017
NREL/PR-7A40-70035
NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.
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Overview
• Market Overview
• Battery Basics
• Value Streams
• Challenges
• Behind-the-meter (BTM) Economics
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Types of Energy Storage
Bulk Storage Distributed Storage
Good: Cost, large capacity Good: Siting, lead time, use options
Bad: Siting, lead time Bad: Cost
Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS) Flywheels
Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES)
Batteries:
Flow
Lead Acid
Sodium Beta
Lithium Ion
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Energy Storage Market Growth
Huge growth in Behind-the 60 MW Storage
Meter Storage Deployed in 2015
GTM (2015) Energy Storage Monitor
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Sharp Decrease in Battery Price Projections
RMI (2014) Economics of Grid Defection
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Power vs. Energy Capacity
• Power : Energy ratio is primary specification for battery
– Can generally specify the power : energy ratio
• Power
– How fast you can charge or discharge the battery
– Measured in kW or MW
• Energy Capacity
– How much energy you have available
– Measured in kWh or MWh
• Common configurations
– 1 MW : 3 MWh (C/3)
– 4 MW : 2 MWh (2C)
• Optimal configuration depends on application
– Which of these buckets is more useful?
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Value Streams for Storage
Opportunities for income and to avoid costs/losses
Commercial
Residential
Potential
Value
Grid
Service Description
Demand charge reduction Use stored energy to reduce demand charges on utility
H ✔ ✔
bills
Energy arbitrage Buying energy in off-peak hours, consuming during
H ✔ ✔
peak hours
Demand response Utility programs that pay customers to lower demand
H ✔ ✔
during system peaks
Resiliency / Back-up power Using battery to sustain a critical load during grid
H ✔ ✔ ✔
outages
Frequency regulation Stabilize frequency on moment-to-moment basis
H ✔ ✔
Capacity markets Supply spinning, non-spinning reserves
M ✔ ✔
Voltage support Insert or absorb reactive power to maintain voltage
L ✔
ranges on distribution or transmission system
T&D Upgrade Deferral Deferring the need for transmission or distribution Site
✔
system upgrades, e.g. via system peak shaving specific
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Balancing multiple uses
• Every battery system can be employed for multiple use-cases. Each
use may only require a few hours per year or a few minutes per day.
This allows system operators to tap multiple value streams.
• Discharging the battery for one purpose may prohibit its use for
another purpose, until it is recharged. This means that uses must be
prioritized in order to maximize return on investment.
• A battery that is discharged to provide demand charge reduction
may not be at full capacity to serve critical load, in the event of a
grid outage.
• In addition, battery cycling (charging and discharging) produces
wear and tear and shortens the lifetime of the battery. System
operators must determine whether the value obtained from cycling
the battery outweighs the cost of battery degradation.
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Challenges
• No standard assumptions regarding:
– Use-case/Project design
– Temperature
– Charge-discharge rate
– Assumed battery end of life (EOL)
• Lack of ancillary service markets/inability to tap all potential
value streams
– Need for service aggregators and clear market rules
• Need to identify optimal system configurations for various
use-cases
• Interconnection processes not defined
• Lack of incentive to track and share cost and performance
data
• Inability to quantify and monetize the value of resiliency
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PV vs. Batteries
• PV is simple
– Put it on the roof
– The sun shines
– Electricity is produced
– Your utility bill is lowered
• Batteries are complicated
– Put one in the basement or in a shed
– Nothing happens
• Batteries can usually only do one thing at a time
– To maximize Return on Investment (ROI), must
determine how to operate the battery
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Energy Storage Economics in a Nutshell
Energy storage: A bucket that moves energy from one time period to another
• Need to decide:
– When to fill the bucket
– When to empty the bucket
– How big of a bucket to buy
• Factors to consider:
– How fast can the bucket be filled or emptied?
– How much does the bucket cost?
– How long will the bucket last?
– Will using the bucket in a certain way cause it to fail faster?
• The value of the energy must be worth more at the time you empty the bucket than it
was at the time you filled the bucket
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Electricity Use: KWh vs. kW
Instantaneous
use: demand –
measured in
kilowatts (kW)
Area under the curve: Energy use – measured in kilowatt hours (kWh)
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Energy Charge vs. Demand Charge
2,500
Grid Serving Load Electric Load
2,000
1,500
kW
1,000
Peak = demand (~2,000 kW
on Thursday at noon)
500
� useArea under curve = energy
(~285,600 kWh for week)
0
Demand Charge: Energy Charge:
$15/kW for highest peak $0.11/kWh for all energy used
$15/kW x 2,000 kW = $30,000 $0.11/kWh x 285,600 kWh = $31,415
One week is shown here, but utilities determine and charge these on a monthly basis
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Energy Savings from PV Generation
2,500
PV Serving Load Grid Serving Load Electric Load
2,000
1,500
kW
1,000
PV System producing 34,300
Peak = demand (~2,000 kWh/week
kW on Thursday at 5 pm)
500
� useArea under curve = energy
(~251,300 kWh for week)
0
Demand Charge: Energy Charge:
$15/kW for highest peak $0.11/kWh for all energy used
$15/kW x 2,000 kW = $30,000 $0.11/kWh x 251,300 kWh = $27,643
Savings of $3,772/week
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Demand Savings from Peak Shaving
2,500
Storage Discharging PV Serving Load Grid Serving Load Electric Load
Battery is shaving down peak in
afternoon/evening when PV is
2,000
no longer producing electricity
1,500
kW
1,000
PV System producing 34,300
kWh/week
500
Peak = demand (~1,750 kW) � useArea under curve = energy
(~251,300 kWh for week)
0
Demand Charge: Energy Charge:
$15/kW for highest peak $0.11/kWh for all energy used
$15/kW x 1,750 kW = $26,250 $0.11/kWh x 251,300 kWh = $27,643
Savings of $3,750/week Savings of $3,772/week
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Renewable Energy Screening Tools & Resources
Renewable Energy Screening Tools
• LCOE Calculator
– www.nrel.gov/analysis/tech_lcoe.html
• PVWatts
– http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/
• REopt Lite Web Tool Storage
– https://reopt.nrel.gov/
• System Advisor Model (SAM)
– https://sam.nrel.gov/ Storage
Renewable Energy Screening Resources
• Technology Cost and Performance Matrix
– http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/tech_cost_dg.html
• Resource Maps
– http://maps.nrel.gov/femp
• Incentives and Utility Policies
– http://www.dsireusa.org/
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REopt Lite Web Tool
• Publicly available web version of
REopt launching September 2017
• evaluates the economics of grid-
connected PV and battery storage at
a site
• Allows building owners to identify
the system sizes and battery
dispatch strategy that minimize
their life cycle cost of energy
https://reopt.nrel.gov/tool.html
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Web Interface Inputs (Basic)
Only a few inputs describing the site’s characteristics are required in order to
run the tool
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Web Interface Inputs (Advanced)
Additional (advanced) inputs can be accessed by user if desired; all advanced options are
pre-populated with default values
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Results Output – Economics Summary
The summary table compares the optimal case with the business as usual case.
If no technologies are recommended the two are the same
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Results Output –Dispatch Graph
The hourly dispatch graph allows the user to see how the battery and PV
systems are operating on an hourly basis. The zoom feature allows the user to
look at different time periods (full year, month, week, day etc.)
Hourly dispatch for one week
Hourly dispatch for one day
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