Outage avoidance and amelioration using Battery Energy Storage Systems

Planned and unplanned outages on distribution networks may cause major economic loss to the customers, and can result in substantial reparation payments by the utilities. This paper analyzes the use of a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) to partially or completely avoid these outages. The analysis is conducted with a multi-day high demand scenario where the load demand at peak times exceeds the current capacity of the line. This would result in an outage unless the current from the substation can be reduced. Three basic scenarios representative of different degrees of sophistication of feeder automation were studied: A conventional feeder controlled by one or more reclosing breakers; a modern distribution feeder equipped with a limited number of remote controlled breakers that will disconnect non-vital loads belonging to residential, commercial and industrial customers and a modern distribution feeder equipped with numerous remote controlled breakers that will selectively disconnect commercial, industrial, and residential loads, based on their degree of criticality. This study concluded that the total or partial avoidance of outages by way of BESS usage is feasible; however, the use of “smart grid” control technology can provide more benefit than BESSs in the scenarios studied.