Levelized Cost of Electricity with Storage Degradation

Electrochemical Energy Storage (EES) will be a crucial asset to support the increasing high penetrations of intermittent renewables and to provide means for energy arbitrage. In investment perspective, the economics of energy systems with EES can be challenging to appraise due to not being an electrical generator. This work investigates the impact on Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) with EES degradation cost. Here, a Kenyan energy system consisting of Photovoltaic (PV), Anaerobic Digestion biogas power plant (AD) and EES is used as a case study with EES energy capital cost at 200 $/kWh. This paper begins by providing an overview of lithium-ion storage and its studies in energy systems. Sensitivity analysis is conducted for various PV and EES capacity to examine the LCOE with and without degradation cost. For more accurate economic analysis, the future research areas are identified as follows: techno-economic analysis needs to consider storage degradation at different operating conditions; and storage degradation models that consider various temperature, C-rate and State of Charge, calendar ageing are required. When comparing energy storage options, cell degradation for EES is an important factor to be addressed in the techno-economic analysis for Generation Integrated Energy Storage (GIES) and non-GIES systems.