Application Methods of Efficient Electricity Storage Systems to Improve Flexibility of Power Systems

Recently, the global amounts of commissioned generator units based on renewable energy sources (RES) surpassed the amounts of commissioned thermal, hydraulic, and nuclear power plants. Many countries see significant growth in the amount and total installed capacity of wind power plants (WPP) and solar power plants (SPP) among the generating facilities of power systems. This trend requires additional resources to be deployed in power systems to improve their flexibility considering the stochastic nature of electric power generation by WPP and SPP. The application of electricity storage systems (ESS) allows for the temporal difference between the generation and consumption of electricity and helps improve the controllability of power system modes in the context of growing proportions of WPPs and SPPs. This article reviews the methods of the efficient ESS application in WPPs and SPPs, backbone and distribution grids, as well as microgrids. The authors review the examples of successful deployment of large ESS and aggregation of household ESS to solve a wide range of problems in different countries. They demonstrate the technical and economic benefits obtained from the deployment of ESS, including frequency and voltage control in power systems and the delay of investment into the renovation of conventional power plants and power grid facilities.