Toward understanding the complexity of long-duration energy storage siting in high renewable power grids

Long-duration energy storage (LDES) devices are not yet widely installed in existing power systems but are expected to play a significant role in high variable-renewable energy grids. Siting LDES devices is complex and can significantly impact system cost, but the factors influencing optimal LDES device placement are not fully understood. We consider the optimal placement of an LDES device in two different power systems with varied system configurations. We analyze the impact of VRE concentration and location, load location, other storage device locations, and transmission availability using production cost models. We find that all of these factors influence optimal LDES siting, and no single metric considered was able to consistently identify optimal placement. Further, we found that LDES placement in the grid can have impacts that propagate throughout the grid (e.g., increasing curtailment in certain areas while decreasing it in others), and we propose several areas of future work.