Pre-Installation Studies of a BESS in a Real LV Network with High PV Penetration

The usage of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) in distribution systems has been receiving increasing interest in the power industry for applications such as to improve asset loading indices, increase reliability indices through the provision of backup reserve, among others. This paper presents detailed pre-installation studies to connect a 100 kW/255 kWh BESS into a real residential LV network with high penetration of small-scale rooftop PV systems, in the context of a pilot R&D project being conducted in Brazil. Different control modes and settings and their corresponding impacts on the performance of the BESS to play some expected applications are investigated through Quasi-Static Time Series (QSTS) simulations of this network. The results obtained suggest that, if properly operated, the BESS designed has enough capacity to well-perform both grid-connected and islanded applications.