Profits of smart energy storage for industrial electricity

How important are electricity storage technologies for wholesale electricity markets?

As the amount of electricity generated by variable renewable energy technologies (VARET), mainly wind and photovoltaics (PV) increases, electricity storage technologies and their relevance for the wholesale electricity markets becomes more vital.

Do electricity storage systems have economic perspectives?

The major result is that the perspectives of electricity storage systems from an economic viewpoint are highly dependent on the storage's operation time, the nature of the overall system, availability of other flexibility options, and sector coupling.

Why is storage important in electricity production?

Since the early beginnings of the electricity system, storage has been of high relevance for balancing supply and demand. Through expanded electricity production by variable renewable technologies such as wind and photovoltaics, the discussion about new options for storage technologies is emerging.

Does storage reduce the cost of electricity?

In general, they conclude that storage provides only a small contribution to meet residual electricity peak load in the current and near-future energy system. This results in the statement that each new storage deployed in addition to the existing ones makes the price spread smaller, see Figure 16, and, hence, reduces its own economic benefits.

Which technologies convert electrical energy to storable energy?

These technologies convert electrical energy to various forms of storable energy. For mechanical storage, we focus on flywheels, pumped hydro, and compressed air energy storage (CAES). Thermal storage refers to molten salt technology. Chemical storage technologies include supercapacitors, batteries, and hydrogen.

How can energy storage be profitable?

Where a profitable application of energy storage requires saving of costs or deferral of investments, direct mechanisms, such as subsidies and rebates, will be effective. For applications dependent on price arbitrage, the existence and access to variable market prices are essential.