Impact of Large Scale Battery Energy Storage on the 2030 Central European Transmission Grid

Grid-level battery energy storage systems have been proposed as a technology that can mitigate the adverse effects of stochastic renewable energy sources by performing electric energy time shift on the grid. In this work, full-year hourly AC optimal power flow simulations are supplemented by a battery energy storage scheduling routine that utilises multi-period optimal power flow simulations, with dispatch costs based on battery degradation. Different penetration and cost scenarios for the 2030 central European transmission grid are investigated. It is found that increasing battery energy penetrations lead to a lower overall cost of electricity and significantly less wind and solar photovoltaic power curtailment, but that the capacity factors of battery energy storage systems also decrease considerably. The utilisation of battery energy storage systems is also highly dependent on geographic location, with systems located in Austria, southern and western Germany achieving relatively higher capacity factors.