An innovative framework for electrical energy storage system selection for remote area electrification with renewable energy system: Case of a remote village in India

Electrical energy storage is a promising solution to overcome the intermittency and demand-supply mismatch problem in hybrid renewable energy systems. The objective of the present study is to prioritize ten electrical energy storage systems by using an innovative ranking framework, considering different criteria. Further, a techno-economic study of a hybrid renewable energy system is performed for rural area electrification, where the present selection strategy of the storage system is incorporated in the system design. Due to the conflicting nature of these criteria, a fuzzy assisted Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution method based framework is employed for its prioritization. The effect of variation of the weights on the criteria is also investigated through a sensitivity analysis. The framework is used to design an optimum hybrid renewable energy system for a remote village in India using the Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables tool. The results of the ranking show that pumped hydro storage, compressed air energy storage, and lead-acid batteries are the top three electrical energy storage systems that present more benefits for renewable energy integration for the present case. Moreover, adopting a storage system selection strategy can further reduce the cost of energy of the system. Therefore, the present framework provides a systematic procedure of storage system selection for renewable energy integration by considering different conflicting criteria for case-specific application.