Community energy storage, a critical element in smart grid: A review of technology, prospect, challenges and opportunity

Community Energy Storage (CES) has been known as a new generation of energy storage that is a crucial element in smart grid. Its location at the edge of the grid and close to customers offers great benefits compare to energy storage located at substation in terms of smoothening the impacts of intermittent Renewable Energy (RE) resources and diversity of Electric Vehicle (EV) operational characteristics. Power utilities found that CES deployment along with reliable planning and control system can become a smart solution in providing sustainable energy and open new business opportunity. However, despite the benefits, CES deployment in distribution system with the integration of PV and EV may face several challenges. This paper provides an overview of CES, covering technology, prospect, challenges and opportunity in obtaining a reliable smart distribution system with optimal cost. In addition, preliminary simulation works are presented to show the effectiveness of CES in reducing power loss and improve voltage profile compare to a central battery located at substation.