Utility-Scale Portable Energy Storage Systems

doi:10.1016/j.joule.2020.12.005

Joule

Volume 5, Issue 2, 17 February 2021, Pages 379-392

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Highlights

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The concept and applications of utility-scale PESS
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An on-demand spatiotemporal decision model for PESS operation and routing
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Mobilizing energy storage can increase its life-cycle revenue by up to 70%
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PESS complements transmission line for distributed renewable energy integration

Context & Scale

Improving the economic viability of energy storage with smarter and more efficient utilization schemes can support more rapid penetrations of renewables and cost-effectively accelerate decarbonization.

We find that mobilizing energy storage can significantly increase its competitiveness and improve renewable energy integration in many areas in California, with combined on-demand applications of renewable energy integration, grid investment deferral, and providing ancillary services. Portable energy storage systems can complement transmission expansion by enabling fast, flexible, and cost-efficient responses to renewable integration that is crucial for a timely and cost-effective energy transition. Such systems can also potentially provide many other on-demand services in the future, including serving as physical platforms for battery trading, sharing, and reuse, coping with seasonal power shortages, and supporting repurposing and recycling of batteries from electric vehicles.

Summary

Battery storage is expected to play a crucial role in the low-carbon transformation of energy systems. The deployment of battery storage in the power grid, however, is currently limited by its low economic viability, which results from not only high capital costs but also the lack of flexible and efficient utilization schemes and business models. Making utility-scale battery storage portable through trucking unlocks its capability to provide various on-demand services. We introduce the potential applications of utility-scale portable energy storage and investigate its economics in California using a spatiotemporal decision model that determines the optimal operation and transportation schedules of portable storage. We show that mobilizing energy storage can increase its life-cycle revenues by 70% in some areas and improve renewable energy integration by relieving local transmission congestion. The life-cycle revenue of spatiotemporal arbitrage can fully compensate for the costs of a portable energy storage system in several regions in California.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords

portable energy storage

spatiotemporal decision

renewable energy integration

grid congestion relief

electric truck

battery

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