Aggregating Distributed Energy Storage: Cloud-Based Flexibility Services From China

To meet the newest carbon emission reduction and carbon neutrality targets, the capacity of variable renewable energy sources in China is planned to double in the next five years. A high penetration of renewable energy brings significant power system flexibility challenges, and the requirements for flexible resources become increasingly critical. Energy storage, as an effective and adaptable solution, may still be too expensive for peak shaving and renewable energy integration. A new type of business model has been proposed that uses cloud-based platforms to aggregate distributed energy storage resources to provide flexibility services to power systems and consumers. In such cloudbased platforms, storage resources can be more strategically used so that the unit cost of providing the service can be reduced. In the actual implementation of cloud-based energy storage, distributed resources have also been expanded from batteries to a variety of solutions, such as variable loads and heat storage.