The Future of Power Storage in South Eastern Europe

The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Ministry of Energy and Industry of Albania held a joint workshop on the future role of energy storage in South Eastern Europe on 21 -22 October in Tirana. The workshop was attended by 40 specialists from academia, government, regulatory bodies, power industry and consultancies from both EU accession and candidate countries as well as from EU Member States. The participants actively discussed the technical, financial and regulatory challenges of the energy systems of the Western Balkans, and options of how these could be overcome. The event served as a forum for sharing and critically reflecting experience gained in Western Europe during the last decade. The workshop held in Tirana was part of the Enlargement and Integration Action. The present report summarizes the interventions of the participants, the discussions and conclusions of the workshop.JRC.F.6-Energy Technology Policy Outloo

On optimal participation in the electricity markets of wind power plants with battery energy storage systems

© . This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/The recent cost reduction and technological advances in medium- to large-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) makes these devices a true alternative for wind producers operating in electricity markets. Associating a wind power farm with a BESS (the so-called virtual power plant (VPP)) provides utilities with a tool that converts uncertain wind power production into a dispatchable technology that can operate not only in spot and adjustment markets (day-ahead and intraday markets) but also in ancillary services markets that, up to now, were forbidden to non-dispatchable technologies. What is more, recent studies have shown capital cost investment in BESS can be recovered only by means of such a VPP participating in the ancillary services markets. We present in this study a multi-stage stochastic programming model to find the optimal operation of a VPP in the day-ahead, intraday and secondary reserve markets while taking into account uncertainty in wind power generation and clearing prices (day-ahead, secondary reserve, intraday markets and system imbalances). A case study with real data from the Iberian electricity market is presented.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Bridging the gap between electricity demand and supply in West Africa : The role of renewable energy and interconnections

The electricity sector of West African countries is experiencing several challenges including, low electricity access rates, high usage of oil generators, frequent power outages and high electricity tariff rates. In an effort to solve these challenges, the West African Power Pool (WAPP) aims to interconnect all fourteen countries and develop regional power plants to benefit multiple countries. This research evaluates the role of renewable energy sources (RES) and interconnections in providing access to affordable and reliable electricity supply. This is achieved by first developing a demand model called HeDEMO (Hourly electricity DEmand MOdel) to generate hourly electricity demand in the year 2016 and 2030. The hourly demand in the residential sector of each country is modelled using a bottom-up methodology for urban and rural households, while the non-residential sectors are modelled using a top-down methodology. Next, a multi-regional economic dispatch model of West Africa’s interconnected electricity network is developed using the 2030 hourly demand dataset. The dispatch model adequately represents the intermittent characteristics of RES in different locations of the region. Six scenarios are optimized to evaluate the impact of high integration of grid-connected RES and additional interconnections. Finally, a multi criteria decision analysis is applied to assess and rank these six scenarios, based on eight sustainability criteria. The results indicate that in 2030, electricity demand in West Africa is forecasted to be five times its 2016 level. Furthermore, most of the planned interconnections by WAPP will be underutilized in 2030. Thereby providing an opportunity to integrate unexplored RES in the region. The demand methodology presented in this thesis can be applicable to developing countries that have challenges of scarce historical hourly demand data, electricity supply-demand gap, and urban/rural economic divide. Additionally, the sustainability assessment of the 2030 scenarios will help inform energy policy makers on optimal RES integration and interconnection expansion policies for the region

Contribution of a pumped-storage hydropower plant to reduce the scheduling costs of an isolated power system with high wind power penetration

AbstractThe paper aims at demonstrating that the consideration of constant start-up costs and ramps of the thermal generating units for assessing the contribution of pumped-hydro energy storage to reduce the scheduling costs of hydrothermal power systems with high wind penetration, may yield unrealistic results. For this purpose, an isolated power system is used as a case study. The contribution of a pumped-storage hydropower plant to reduce the system scheduling costs is assessed in the paper by using a hydrothermal weekly unit commitment model. The model considers different start-up costs and ramps of the thermal generating units as a function of the start-up type. The effects of including pumped hydro energy storage in the system on the integration of wind energy, and on the start-ups and capacity factors of the thermal generating units are also evaluated. The results of the paper demonstrate that the consideration of constant start-up costs and ramps of the thermal generating units yields unrealistic results, and that the pumped-storage hydropower plant may help reduce the system scheduling costs by 2.5–11% and integrate wind power and may allow dispensing with some inflexible thermal generating units