Power Management Strategy for Sizing Battery System for Peak Load Limiting in a University Campus

This paper presents an effective approach to design the capacity of the battery energy storage system (BESS) when this latter is applied for peak load shaving in campus university buildings integrating roof-top photovoltaic (PV) modules. In our setting, electricity is mainly supplied from the utility grid to a pre-set power limit. However, once the load demand exceeds the pre-set power limit, photovoltaic modules and BESS can both be used to effectively limit the active power drawn from the utility grid. The sizing strategy aims to minimize investment on BESS and take advantages of the available PV modules to limit the campus peak load to a minimum billing demand. The main objective of the proposed method is to find the optimal size of the BESS that maximizes the annual benefits of the university campus when the BESS and PV modules are used for peak load shaving. A cost benefit analysis is implemented and which considers also factors influencing the BESS such as battery conversion losses. The approach is validated by case studies where the optimal battery system is sized for Quebec pricing scheme.