Proposing an Optimization Model for a techno-economic Evaluation of Energy Storage Systems

Abstract:
During the global energy crisis in 2022, electricity prices increased drastically. This lead, together with an overall higher price volatility to possibly higher electrical energy storage system (ESS) profitability. To test if the investment in an ESS can now be more profitable, an approach for a techno-economic evaluation of ESS is presented in this paper, using an optimization algorithm to determine the optimal way of covering a load flow profile with electricity trading products on the electricity market with and without the use of an energy storage system. The cost differences between using or not using the storage system are assumed to be the profits of the ESS, which must exceed the (interest-bearing) investment costs over its lifetime. The correct way of operation of the optimization model is validated and several storage sizes and capacities as well as several years of the electricity market data was analyzed, once with a perfect forecast of all prices of the electricity trading products and once with a forecast based on the previous years purchasing strategy. The results show that, using the prognosis and a 2 % p.a. interest rate, only the storage combinations for 2.5 MWh/ 2.5 MW and 1 MWh/ 1 MW show profitability in 2023, whereas 2017 and 2020 show no profitability.