A simple and effective approach for peak load shaving using Battery Storage Systems

This paper discusses a simple method to perform peak load shaving through the means of energy storage systems owned by a utility. Peak load shaving, also referred to as load leveling or peak shifting, consists of the schemes used to eliminate the peaks and valleys in the load profile. This practice offers direct and indirect benefits to utilities in generation costs, line loss reduction, and volt support. Prior work in peak load shaving has been mainly focused on optimization approaches implemented through methods such as non-linear and dynamic programming, or heuristic approaches such as particle-swarm optimization. The proposed algorithm for peak load shaving in this paper is based on a simple approach which compares the aggregated load profile with its average in a certain utilization period and shares the charge/discharge amongst energy storage devices based on the definition of energy bars and weighting factors. In particular, the paper focuses on the usage of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) to accomplish this task. Results show that the proposed algorithm offers a simple, fast and effective way for peak-load shaving without heavy computational burdens often needed in other methods. As a result, it can be easily implemented in a utility main substation for controlling the charge/discharge of storage devices throughout the distribution system.