Volume 29: Closing Carbon Cycles – A Transformation Process Involving Technology, Economy, and Society: Part IV

Sizing of long duration storage in a variable renewable power system Sébastien Pezza, Caroline Bono, Fabien Bricault, Edi Assoumou and Sandrine Selosse

Abstract

The sizing of long duration storage is one of the main challenges in the study of the feasibility of low-carbon power systems. In reviewing the literature, we identify that the consideration of technical and environmental constraints as well as uncertainty in production and consumption impact its sizing. We then determine that, with a classical unit commitment optimization, the choice of the simulation horizon, as well as the length of that horizon and the combination of years on which the study is carried out have a significant impact on the sizing of long duration storage. The reasons for this are the different long duration storage (LDS) discharge need profiles in different years and the sizing method used. We also found that the sequence of meteorological events significantly impacts the LDS sizing. Hence, our need for LDS considerably increases compared to the results proposed by the literature which in most cases doesn’t consider those methodological aspects. This finding calls for the development of more robust methods for sizing long duration storage as well as further research on the LDS role in high penetration variable renewable energy (VRE) power systems.

Keywords renewable power systems, energy storage, power systems modeling, long duration storage, security of supply