Stacking battery energy storage revenues with enhanced service provision

Abstract

Battery energy storage systems (BESSs) offer many desirable services from peak demand lopping/valley filling too fast power response services. These services can be scheduled so they enhance each other; in this manner, the inverter size is effectively leveraged with battery capacity. A variable cost for under-frequency service provision will be required to incentivise this type of operation, and various options are explored in this study. It is demonstrated that BESSs may struggle for profitability under certain service payments; however, returns can be maximised through revenue stacking. In this study, enhanced service provision results in increased power system service provision and returns from energy arbitrage. A 10 and 2 years datasets, containing information on the Irish power system, are used to investigate potential per MW revenue from a BESS with a 1.5 and 2.5 h batteries. Three statistically derived, engineering-based, power system service scalar multipliers are investigated and compared with the scalar being introduced on the Irish system. It is demonstrated that flexible service payments can be increased by more than 10% while receiving arbitrage payments. The seasonal variation in BESS revenue is investigated and observed to be mitigated or exacerbated by service scalars.