Energy Storage Sizing and Location in Distribution Networks Considering Overall Grid Performance

Energy Storage Systems (ESSs) are promising solutions for mitigating the technical problems created by high penetration of Distributed Generation (DG) in distribution grids. This paper presents a methodology for the ESS sizing and placement within the distribution networks. Those are found through an optimization routine that considers the impact of the use of storage on voltage regulation and system losses. Several scenarios, varying the load and PV panels power, are investigated. In addition, the impact on the energy storage requirements of a basic residential self-consumption scheme is evaluated. The proposed method has demonstrated to be effective in determining the ESS size in the studied scenarios. Furthermore, the results show that the location that requires the lowest ESS rating does not necessarily offer satisfactory performances in terms of losses reduction and voltage control. Also, the paper shows that by encouraging residential users to self-consume the energy produced by the PV panels installed in their house, the grids ESS requirements can be significantly reduced.