Assessing Peak Demand Reduction and Electricity Cost Savings of a Behind-the-Meter Battery for Commercial and Industrial Customers

This paper presents an analysis of peak demand reduction and electricity cost savings for commercial and industrial (C&I) customers deploying behind-the-meter battery storage systems (BSSs). To do so, a BSS scheduling strategy is proposed that facilitates battery charging, both from the solar system and the grid, as well as discharging during demand charge-, peak time-of-use (ToU) rate-, and shoulder ToU rate-applicable periods in succession to peak demand and maximize cost savings. The proposed grid charging is conducted during off-peak ToU periods by taking factors like possible solar supply, BSS size and available BSS capacity, and demand during peak and shoulder periods into account. Finally, the performance of the proposed charge and discharge scheduling of the BSS is investigated for three C&I customers with different demand profiles. The simulation results are also compared with the business as usual, in which C&I customers buy and sell energy at ToU and feed-in-tariff (FiT) rates, respectively, without possessing any BSS at their premises. It is observed from the case study that the reductions in peak demand and electricity costs vary between 35.62% and 98.07% and between 4.61% and 11.01%, respectively.