Operation, sizing, and economic evaluation of storage for solar and wind power plants

Renewable energy sources have a huge potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decrease the dependence on fossil fuels in the energy sector. However, the energy output of these sources is variable and raises concerns regarding the electric grid reliability. Therefore, the deployment of energy storage would play a key role in enabling the integration of these sources in the electric grid. This paper proposes methods for determining the optimal operation and sizing of energy storage systems. The main purpose of the operation strategy is to maximize the revenues of the renewable farm. The sizing model, on the other hand, has a purpose to minimize the cost of the hybrid system while meeting the service requirement. Both methods were formulated as non-linear programming optimization models. To verify the effectiveness of these methods; case studies have been presented. Finally, this paper proposes an economical analysis to determine the cost added by the storage to each KWh of stored energy. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.