Simulation Results for Finding Optimal Battery Energy Storage Capacity in Decarbonizing the Power Sector of South Korea

Abstract

This study aims to analyze an optimal energy storage capacity (ESC) according to the different settings of solar and wind power facilities in Korea's power supply environments. We investigated with a unit commitment and economic dispatch system by changing the capacity of energy storage from 2.5 GWh to 1,000 GWh when installing solar and wind power plants increasingly. We assume that demand is uncertain, leading to a power shortage at the economic dispatch stage. We also take that the electricity cannot be purchased from an external network, and then a specific penalty cost is levied in the event of a power shortage. With solar and wind power facilities less than 137.9GW and 75.3GW, respectively, the result shows that an increase in ESC leads to increasing CO2 emissions, where the power generation from coal with low operating costs increases by replacing the power generation from LNG with high operating costs. However, more solar and wind power installation results in decreasing CO2 emissions. As ESC increases, the penalty incurred by not meeting the demand is reduced in all cases. However, it also can be confirmed that the facility cost increases. © 2022 IEEE.