The Value of Corrective Network Security for Distributed Energy Storage Applications

Energy storage can provide services to several sectors in electricity industry, including generation, transmission and distribution, where conflicts and synergies may arise when storage is used to manage network congestion and provide services in energy and balancing markets. In this context, this study proposes an optimisation model to coordinate multiple services delivered to various market participants that uses corrective actions to resolve conflicts between provision of distribution network services (e.g. congestion and security of supply) and other services. The model maximises storage profit by scheduling active and reactive power to provide portfolio of services including distribution network congestion management, energy price arbitrage, frequency response and reserve services remunerated at different prices. The authors demonstrate that adopting corrective security to provide network services and deal with network congestion in a post-fault fashion, is overall more beneficial despite the energy needed to be stored during pre-fault conditions for applying post-contingency actions right after a network fault occurs. Furthermore, the authors’ analysis shows that application of corrective security can benefit both (i) storage owners through increased revenues in energy and balancing services markets and (ii) Distribution Network Operators through reduction in payments to storage owners and increased utilisation of network infrastructure.