Significance of Energy Storage Systems in power

smoothing to enhance wind energy penetration in DG

Environment

Abstract. Electrical power generation has changed significantly during last three
decades across the world to reduce the emission of greenhouse and harmful gas-
ses emissions and to get familiarise with the mixed energy sources. The main
challenge in transmission and distribution network is to maintain a balance be-
tween demand and supply due to unpredictable and intermittent nature of wind.
ESS is an emerging technology and has an abundant scope to meet these immi-
nent challenges. An ideal ESS stores energy in a particular state, according to its
type used in the system and delivers it in the form of electrical energy at time of
requirement. This paper provides a comprehensive study and a comparison of
various types of energy storage systems available to increase wind energy poten-
tial and to enhance power smoothing in wind energy generation system. The com-
parison of these systems has been done on the basis of energy and power density,
efficiency, lifespan, self-discharge rates, installation and maintenance costs and
environmental impact as well..

Keywords: Electric power; energy storage system; efficiency; discharge-rate;

cost; Power Quality; Battery Energy Storage System (BESS); Super Capacitor
Storage System (SCSS); Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS.

1 Introduction

Energy consumption has increased significantly over the last three decades with surge
in industries and population growth. India’s power demand is increasing at the rate of
6% per annum. Government’s Policy Wing, Niti Aayog, has speculated that the energy
demand of India is expected to go up by 3.5 to 4.5 times between 2020 and 2040. In the
recent years, Renewable Power Generation capacity of India has grown from 85 GW
to 560 GW at a growth rate of about 600% and globally it grew from 1000 GW to 2195
GW. Globally, the capacity of total renewable energy generation has reached 2351 GW
which is one third of total installed electricity capacity. India has been working on the
largest Global Green Energy Programme and is one of the largest renewable energy
producing countries using various renewable sources. By the end of 2026-27, India has
committed 40% of its installed power generating capacity to non-fossil fuel sources and
is projected to get 56% from clean energy sources by 2030 which is currently at 20%
in the present fiscal year. Fig.1 depicts India’s total installed power capacity.
2

Fig. 1. India’s Installed Power Capacity

Among various renewable energy sources, solar and wind has a major contribution in
fulfilling demand of world’s renewable electricity consumption. Out of total renewable
energy generation capacity of about 25.1%, contribution of wind energy is at 4.8%,
which is second highest after hydropower energy as shown in Fig 2.

Figure 2: Wind Energy Capacity

Wind energy generated from wind power plants, is the most efficient and viable solu-
tion at places where adequate wind potential is available to harness wind energy. More-
over, wind power plants do not produce greenhouse gases. Thus energy from renewable
energy sources is also termed as clean energy. But like other renewable sources like
solar and tidal, wind is unpredictable as well as uncontrollable also. This irregular na-
ture of wind increases the technical difficulty in ensuring good quality of power, stabil-
ity in the power supply and also challenges the reliability of power grid.
The main challenge in increasing penetration of wind generation into existing power
system network is to manage the uncertain amount of power generated at high wind
speeds than at lower ones. The prescribed range of wind speeds for a turbine is called
productive wind speed that normally ranges between 6 m/sec to 25 m/sec. The optimal
speed prescribed for a large-scale wind farms is about 9 m/s. The output power of the
turbine is cubically proportional to the wind speed. So with every small variation in the
wind speed, the output power from the wind turbine changes significantly and directly
affects the power quality of the wind generation system.
Power quality is defined as the power which enables proper working of the equipment.
A poor power quality means: Voltage fluctuations, Sag/Swell etc. Various causes and
effects of having poor power quality are listed in Table-1.

Table -1 Causes & Effect of Various Power Quality Issues

 3

Power Q uality Issues Causes Effects

Over voltages, Flickers and Lighting is-

Voltage Fluctuations Switching load variations
sues

Sy stem fault, High starting load, Excessive

Voltage Sag load on the network, variation in the source volt- Over loading issues. Erratic lock-up,
age, high inrush current,

Sudden load variations, variations in the

Loss of data, damaged equipment, irregu-
Voltage Swell voltage source, high inrush current, wiring is-
lar lock-up, grabbling in data
sues,

Long Term Voltage In- Failure of protecting devices, insulation fail- Malfunctioning in data processing of the
terruption ure and malfunctioning of control system equipment

An electrical power system can be utilized to its full potential by using an Energy
Storage System (ESS). The Energy storage system helps to improve the efficiency of
the power system by reducing the amount of primary fuel used. ESS also works as an
alternative buffer source and provides better security along with enhanced quality of
power supplied. By using an ESS the excess amount of electricity generated due to the
invariable wind speed can be stored and released as an additional power support to the
grid at the time of contingencies . An ideal energy storage system is capable of han-
dling exigency situations like wind gusts and varying load demands arising for few
seconds to minutes or even longer. The ESS also helps to enhance the efficiency of
the power system by reducing the amount of primary fuel used. This application can
strengthen power networks and maintains load levels even during critical service hours
and also avoids stability issues .
The International Energy Association (IEA) estimated that the total storage capacity
requirement of world will be around a total of 267 GW, which is currently at 178 GW
by the end of 2018. Various energy storage techniques available these days to fulfil the
rising energy demand and to provide a smooth power output for each time interval are:
batteries, super capacitors, flywheels, hydro pump enabled storage and compressed air
storage systems.
The ESS on the basis of form of energy storage can be categorized into mechanical
(phs, caes and Flywheels), electrochemical (rechargeable batteries and flow batteries),
electrical(capacitor sc and smes),thermochemical (solar fuels), chemical (hydrogen
storage with fuel cells) and thermal energy storage as shown in Table 2.

Table 2: ESS with different forms of stored energy

4

The working parameters such as energy, power, life-span, response time and cost
of various ESSs is shown in Table 3.
Table 3: Energy Storage Systems on the basis of working
T ype of En- Power Lif T ime Es-
ESS ergy density e span of Re- timated
density sponse Cost
Chemi- Hig Low Sh Me- Lo
cal battery h ort dium w
So- Me- Low Sh Slow Me-
dium-sul- dium ort dium
phur bat-
tery
Fly- Lo High Lo Fast Hig
wheel w ng h
Super Lo High Lo Fast Me-
Capacitor w ng dium

SMES Me- High Lo Fast Hig

dium ng h

Now days, the storage sector mainly depends upon the mechanical storage system in
the form of pumped hydroelectric storage having capacity of around 127,000 MW. This
is almost 99% of the total storage system deployed so far, followed by compressed air
with capacity of 440 MW, sodium sulphur (316 MW), lead acid (35 MW), nickel cad-
mium (27 MW) and flywheel, lithium ion and flow batteries with 25 MW, 20 MW and
3 MW storage capacity respectively.
There are enormous forms of storing energy are available. The detailed description
and small comparison based on the strngths and weakness of these storage systems are
described further.
Pumped-Storage Hydropower
Pumped hydroelectric system (PHS) is the leading form of energy storage system
in the world today and is the only form of storage to store large quantity of energy for
long durations. These storage plants use gravitational force for electricity generation.
At the time of high renewable energy generation, water is stored at a higher elevation
and released to fall with the help of earth’s gravity to generate electricity at the time
of additional energy requirements. Recent technological advancements have made the
PSH capable to facilitate adjustable speeds according to the demand of the grid and
 5

also to operate in a closed-loop system. A closed loop PSH does not require continu-
ously flowing water supply, so it can be installed at all types of locations. The instal-
lations of PSH can be done either over the ground that is called Conventional or it can
be installed under the ground as well as per the requirements of a specific location.
PHS being highly reliable can be used for power regulation as well as frequency
stabilization. Pumped-storage hydropower (PSH) system is cheaper as well as much
better than the other forms of energy storage system especially to provide very large
storage capacities. This storage system can provide 10 hours of electricity, compared
to about 6 hours for lithium-ion batteries and have long life and very low self-dis-
charge rates with an efficiency of about 80% for a full cycle. The largest installed
capacities of PSH are in USA with 21.8 GW and in Japan with 24.6 GW followed by
European countries like Spain with a smaller installation capacity of about 5.3 MW.
There are over 300 installed PHS systems worldwide.
The main drawbacks of PHS are its high capital cost, long development time, long
pay-back periods and uncertain profitability.

Compressed Air Energy Storage

Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is the second most and the biggest compet-
itor of PHS for large scale energy storages. CAES system utilizes air that undergoes
three main processing steps: Compression, storage and expansion . With compressed
air storage, air is pumped into an underground hole, like a salt cavern, during off-peak
hours. During peak load demand, the air from the underground cave is released back
up into the system, where this compressed air is pre-heated and mixed with natural
gas and get ignited through a gas turbine, thus turning on the electric generator to
produce electrical energy. This heating process using natural gas releases carbon,
which increases the output efficiency of CAES to almost three times.
CAES also has many advantages similar to PHS like high reliability, flexibility and
longer life but at relatively low operation and maintenance costs and also has low self-
discharge rates. It can be used for long as well as for short durations to provide stored
energy at many levels.
The two operating CAES plants are in McIntosh, Alabama built in 1991 with an
installed capacity of 110 MW and other one in Huntorf, Germany. The Anderson
County, Texas plant with a capacity of 317 MW is in under construction mode pres-
ently.
Flywheel Energy Storage
This kind of storage system stores energy in a rotating mass. Flywheel Energy Stor-
age System (FES) consists of mainly five devices like flywheel, bearing, electrical
machine, power converter and containment chamber. These storage systems possesses
extremely high efficiencies for short duration energy requirements and have very high
temperature independent discharge capabilities. More on this, the storage systems re-
quire very less monitoring of state of charge and gets very less affected by the envi-
ronmental impacts. FES has high power density and very good energy density. The
6

system provides a fast response operation with very low degradation. Thus have a long
life, high scalability, and needs no periodic maintenance. The two main drawbacks of
FES systems are high self-discharge rate and safety issues.
The lower containment cost and the lower cost of metals makes lower speed fly-
wheel systems almost five times cheaper than their higher speed equivalents. The op-
erating range of high speed flywheel system falls within the 8000 to 9000 rpm regime .
The higher speed levels of the flywheel exhibits quadratic improvements and better
energy generating capacity of the system, so flywheel speeds are rarely brought down
below 50% of maximu m speed levels of the flywheel.
Flywheels are best suited for load-balancing and load-shifting applications but are
not suitable for long duration storage purposes. Flywheels are known for their long-
life span, high-energy density, low maintenance costs, and quick response speeds. Mo-
tors rotate the flywheel at a very high speed of about 50,000 rpm and store energy.
This stored energy is later used to generate electricity by rotating the flywheel in the
opposite direction. The rotation of flywheel is reduced by placing the wheel in vacuum
to minimize the air friction, which would slow the wheel.
The Stephentown Spindle in Stephentown, New York, with an energy capacity of
20 MW was unveiled for the first time in 2011 for commercial usage.
Chemical Energy Storage
Chemical storage is basically stored in bonds that connect atoms and molecules with
other atoms and molecules. It is stored in the form of potential energy and is released
when a chemical reaction takes place. Chemical energy storage has greatest range of
research so far. Devices that possess chemical energy storage include traditional
batteries, metal or metal-air batteries, fuel cells and flow batteries.
Chemical Batteries
The most widely used form of chemical energy storage are chemical batteries like
Zinc silver oxide (ZnAg), alkaline zinc manganese dioxide (ZnMn), lead acid (Pb -
Acid), lithium ion (Li-Ion), nickel metal hydride (NiMH), nickel cadmium (NiCd ),
nickel iron (NiFe) and nickel zinc (NiZn) batteries . The performance of these batteries
mainly depends upon the material of the electrodes whereas the life span is determined
by the nature of the interface between electrolyte and electrode as well as on the stability
of the electrode. As a result, most of these batteries are highly temperature sensitive
and experiences capacity drop based on both environmental and charge-discharge
conditions.
Fuel Cells
Fuel cells are very much smilar to the metal-air batteries but there are widespread
technological development whenused as an alternative generating source. Fuel cells
known as electrochemical cells converts chemical energy of fuel from an external
source and an oxidizing agent into the electrical output. Fuel cells use natural gas,
ammonia or hydrocarbon gases as the fuel to produce electricity either directly or by
converting these gases to hydrogen rich gases first and then to the electrical output. The
life span and cost of fuel cell on a commercial scale are its major drawbacks.
Flow Batteries
Flow batteries are an alternative to lithium-ion batteries. Being less popular flow
batteries bear only 10 % of market share and are used in multiple long duration energy
 7

storage projects. The Avista Utilities plant in Washington state, use flow battery
storage. A 200 MW (800 MWh) flow battery is currently being constructed in Dalian,
China. This system will not only overtake the Hornsdale Power Reserve as the world’s
biggest battery, but it will also be the only large-scale battery (>100 MW) that is made
up of flow batteries instead of lithium ion batteries.
Thermal storage system
Thermal energy storage devices makes use of temperature to store energy by using
rocks, salts, water, or other materials. When extra energy is available and need to be
stored, these devices are been heated up and kept in an insulated environment. At the
time of contingencies or energy requirement, this thermal energy is released by pouring
cold water onto the hot rocks, salts, or hot water in order to produce steam, that further
been used to rotate the steam turbines to generate electricity. Thermal energy storage
can also be used to heat and cool buildings instead of generating electricity. For
example, thermal storage can be used to make ice overnight to cool a building during
the day. Thermal efficiency ranges from 50 percent to 90 percent depending on the type
of energy used.

Hybrid Energy Storage System

In recent times, the most relevant topic of research is to combine ESS with wind energy
generation system so as to enable smooth and high quality power output. To achieve
the distinctive characteristics of storage system, combination of two different energy
storage devices has been proposed. In this combination, one of the devices possesses
high power density and the other one possesses large energy density, to enhance power
stability of the system irrespective of the wind speed variations.

The Performance Comparisons between Super Capacitor and Lithium-ion Batteries

is shown in Table 1.3.
Table 4: Parameter comparison between Battery and SC

Function Super Capacitor Lithium-ion

Charging time 5-20 seconds 20-80 minutes

Voltage of each Cell 2.6 to 2.8 V 3.5-3.8 V

Specific Energy 6 Wh/kg 110-220

Specific Power Up to 10000 W/hr 1000 to 3000 W/hr

Lifespan 12 to 18 years 6 to 12 years

Cost Less More than SC

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Due to the intermittent nature of wind, the output power of the system gets flickers
and sometimes long term voltage fluctuations. This disturbed and poor quality of power
can distort many of the electrical as well as electronic equipments that require continous
and stable power to operate. This requiremenrt demands a storage system having both
high power response as well as large energy storing capacity. However, it is very
difficult for a single ESS to possess both of these qualities. So, a hybrid energy storage
system having combination of battery and a supercapacitor has been suggested. The
battery ESS having high energy density provides stability for long term voltage
fluctuations whereas the supercapacitor having large power density provides a bulk of
power for deep and short duration power fluctuations or flickers. There are many
options to submerge short term voltage fluctuations like superconductor magnetic
energy storage system (SMES), flywheel energy storage (FES), and supercapacitor
storage system (SCSS). Amongst all these options, SCSS seems to be the most effective
perspective because of its lower cost and less environmental impact. This combination
helps to provide a firm power dispatch.
The installation of large power batteries to store energy increases the per-unit cost of
energy stored which is not feasible from an economic point of view. In an ideal hybrid
energy storage system, super capacitor compensates the fast-occurring short-term volt-
age fluctuations or deep voltage sags whereas the battery handles only slowly occurring
and long-term voltage fluctuations to dispatch a stable power into the grid. So, fro m
economic as well as operational point of view, Hybrid Energy Storage Systems are
more efficient as compared to the single ESS.

The performance comparison of various storage systems on the basis of power and
energy density, efficiency, life span and installations is shown in Table 5.

Table 5: comparison of various Energy Storage Systems

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Conclusion
The HESS ascertains to be the best in comparison to the other sto rage systems. The
combination of two storage devices completely fulfils the storage demand of the system
for both long and short durations . The SCSS having high power density and low energy
density compensates the fast-occurring short-term voltage fluctuations or deep voltage
sags whereas the BESS having high energy density and low power density handles only
slowly occurring and long-term voltage fluctuations to dispatch a stable power into the
grid.

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