The impact of battery energy storage systems and their potential use as a flexibility in operational planning process

Stationary battery energy storage systems (BESS) at utility level are emerging as an attractive solution mainly due to the evolution of the technology and the definition of new energy and ancillary services. While BESS offer significant flexibility, their high power and capacity present challenges for distribution system operators in several processes such as the short-term operational planning. In the present paper, the impact of BESS in the short-term operational planning is analysed considering a real medium voltage distribution grid and realistic power consumption and generation scenarios. To perform this analysis a framework based in open-source tools was developed, including the power flow simulation and the operational planning algorithms. The first conclusion of the assessment is that BESS should be modelled in the operational planning process and new ways of representing the flexibility of BESS are needed. The concept of power operation enveloped has been tested showing the effectiveness of the method to addresses the challenges introduced by BESS.