Life-cycle assessment of batteries for peak demand reduction

At present,a life-cycle assessment of energy storage systems(ESSs)is not widely available in the literature.Such an assessment is increasingly vital nowadays as ESS is recognized as one of the important equipment in power systems to reduce peak demands for deferring or avoiding augmentation in the network and power generation.As the battery cost is still very high at present,a comprehensive assessment is necessary to determine the optimum ESS capacity so that the maximum financial gain is achievable at the end of the batteries’lifespan.Therefore,an effective life-cycle assessment is proposed in this paper to show how the optimum ESS capacity can be determined such that the maximum net financial gain is achievable at the end of the batteries’lifespan when ESS is used to perform peak demand reductions for the customer or utility companies.The findings reveal the positive financial viability of ESS on the power grid,otherwise the projection of the financial viability is often seemingly poor due to the high battery cost with a short battery lifespan.An improved battery degradation model is used in this assessment,which can simulate the battery degradation accurately in a situation whereby the charging current,discharging current,and temperature of the batteries are intermittent on a site during peak demand reductions.This assessment is crucial to determine the maximum financial benefits brought by ESS.

Voltage Unbalance Mitigation in Low Voltage Distribution Networks with Photovoltaic Systems

This paper proposes a technique to mitigate the voltage unbalance issue caused by the high penetration of photovoltaic （PV） systems into the low voltage distribution networks （LVDN） using a single phase energy storage system （ESS）. The ESS comprises a hi-directional power flow inverter and a battery bank. The system is capable of absorbing the excess power and delivering power to the network in order to keep the voltage unbalance factor （VUF） below the statutory limit of 1%. Investigations are carried out in the experimental small-scale energy zone （SSEZ）. The experimental results demonstrate that the ESS is capable of mitigating the VUF of the network.

Economic Assessment of Standby Diesel Generator for Peak Reduction in Commercial and Industrial Buildings:A Case Study in Malaysia

This paper outlines the barriers and potential benefits of using standby diesel generators in mitigating the peak demands for commercial and industrial customers. The feasibility of utilizing the standby diesel generators to reduce the electricity bills for customers is carried out by using the hybrid optimization model for electric renewable(HOMER)software. The size of the standby diesel generator and its operational duration are determined based on the lowest cost of electricity obtained from the evaluations. The economic assessments demonstrate that there is potential to reduce the electricity bills for commercial and industrial customers under the existing fuel price and tariffs. The commercial customers under the tariff C2 have the highest potential to save their electricity bills with the use of standby diesel generators for peak reduction. This study demonstrates the potential of the standby diesel generators in peak reduction.