Energy Storage Placements for Renewable Energy Fluctuations: A Practical Study

Renewable energy resources, such as wind and solar energy, have become the primary components of power systems. However, the uncertainty and fluctuations associated with these resources increase the difficulty to follow renewable fluctuations using conventional generators. Energy storage systems are one of the best choices for improving the mechanical performance limitations of conventional units. In this paper, we analyze the dynamic performance of the conventional-storage frequency regulation model and provide parameter and capacity setting rules for storage. Furthermore, we allocate the storage capacity to buses under different operation modes to minimize transmission-line fluctuations. We use a possible planning power systems in Jiangsu Province, China, in 2030 to analyze and verify our proposal. The system has more than 1000 buses, 2000 branches and 700 generators, and 220, 500 and 1000 kV voltage levels. The results show that using a small amount of storage is feasible for improving regulation performances. Additionally, the optimal energy storage placement effectively reduces the fluctuations and optimizes the power flows in the transmission systems.