Preliminary analysis of long‐term storage requirement in enabling high renewable energy penetration: A case of East Asia

Abstract

Abstract Integrating a high penetration of renewable energy for developing sustainable and low‐carbon electric energy system is becoming a common trend around the world. Many studies have evaluated the energy storage requirement for accommodating variable renewable energy (VRE). However, in the situation of high renewable penetration, there will be a huge potential requirement of long‐term energy storage for addressing the seasonal energy imbalance between VRE and load demand. Thus, a key element of evaluating the storage demand in enabling high VRE penetration is identifying the timescales of storage needed and the economic combination of long‐term and short‐term energy storages. This is neglected in existing researches. In this study, we quantitatively analyse the role of long‐term seasonal storage in enabling high VRE penetration. A generation expansion planning model is formulated to optimise the least‐cost generation portfolio with a renewable penetration target. Based on the proposed model, an empirical analysis for East Asia in 2050 is performed. The results indicate that (1) long‐term storage contributes to addressing the long‐term energy imbalance issue, (2) the optimal duration time of long‐term storage is around 720 h (a month), and (3) the long‐term storage becomes economical when the renewable penetration is above 70% (54.2% VRE penetration).

Keywords

• Optimisation techniques
• Power system management, operation and economics
• Power system planning and layout
• Other energy storage