Applications of Energy Storage Methods in Smart Grids

The goal of the study presented in this paper is to examine various energy storage techniques that can be directly applied to smart grids (SGs). The latter concept refers to an infrastructure of interconnected entities, such as power plants or renewable energy sources (RESs). The full deployment of SGs is expected to leverage optimum power distribution via system monitoring and application of information and communication (ICT) technologies. To this end, proper energy storage is of utmost importance, since it allows uninterrupted provision of electric power to consumers. Since various RESs such as wind farms or photovoltaic systems can have a quite unstable power production due to temporal and season variations, the appropriate energy storage techniques should be adopted per case, ensuring long term supply of electric power and cost minimization.