Techno-economic benefits of grid-scale energy storage in future energy systems

The increasing penetration of renewable energy sources in the power sector represents an important challenge for energy systems due to their elevated intermittency. Energy storage constitutes a key component for its ability to add flexibility to the system allowing further integration of these renewable sources. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyse the impact of grid-scale energy storage in a hydro dominated power system with increasing renewable generation shares. The Colombian energy system is used as a case study. The model used in this work is built using the EnergyPLAN tool and validated against actual data. Successively, the techno-economic effects of large-scale energy storage technologies are assessed on three different future scenarios for the year 2030. The results evidence that increasing levels of storage could allow significant reductions in both the curtailed energy and the total fuel consumption of the country. The best-case scenario shows an estimated 67% reduction in the emission intensity of the power sector by 2030 compared to the baseline scenario.