Modelling Decentralised Energy Storage Systems Using Urban Building Energy Models

The storage of different forms of energy is becoming increasingly important in the energy system sector, due to the significant fluctuations that renewable energy sources influence on urban energy systems. Nowadays, these sources have been promoted for the transition towards modern energy systems at different scales, due to their reduced emissions of greenhouse gases. Yet, many doubts remain about their efficacy in urban settlements worldwide. For this reason, to promote the fast implementation of renewable energy technologies around the world, it is of great importance to design and develop free-access and user-friendly tools to help stakeholders in the planning and management of urban energy districts. The present study has proposed an evaluation tool to model decentralised energy storage systems using Urban Building Energy Models, including an optimisation method to size the best capacity in each building of a district. The developed models simulate two storage technologies: battery power banks and heated water tanks. To present the outcomes of the tool, these models have been tested in two scenarios of Portugal, located in a densely populated area and the most isolated region of the country. Among the most important findings of the results are their ability to evaluate the performance of individual buildings by group archetype and total district metrics, using different temporal periods in a single model to identify the buildings taking most advantage of storage technologies. In addition, the optimisation algorithm efficiently estimated the ideal size of each storage technology, reducing the need of unnecessary capacity.