Electric energy storage for high penetration renewables

Abstract

The future is moving toward increasing the capacity of energy storage technologies in the system to tackle the high ramping requirements from generators due to the expected high penetration level of variable renewable resources, such as wind and solar. Bulk energy storage will play a vital role in the future to meet the electricity market needs. Currently, pumped hydro storage represents the majority of the energy storage capacity. It is planned to bring more pumped hydro storage to the system, with considering the adjustable speed technology. Currently the adjustable speed technology is not utilized in the US. Therefore, there is a need to study the best way of merging it into the electricity markets. This thesis presents the modeling of the adjustable-speed pumped hydro storage in the US electricity markets under different penetration levels of renewables. The thesis is divided into two major studies; operation and planning studies. The operation study goes through the optimization of adjustable-speed pumped hydro storage in the day-ahead and real-time markets. Full- and sub- optimizations were compared under low and high penetration levels of renewables. The planning study utilizes the planning optimization model for 10-year period while considering the adjustable-speed pumped hydro storage and US Environmental Protection Agency emissions standards for existing and new power plants.