Energy Storage for Active Network Management on Electricity Distribution Networks with Wind Power

Increasing amounts of variable renewable generation are likely to enter our energy systems in the near future. In order to accommodate this generation onto our electricity networks, the concept of active network management (ANM) has become a significant area of research interest. Network connected energy storage is considered here as a means to actively control the network in order to increase the amount of generation it is possible to connect to a network. Energy storage is one of several potential methods of ANM, but has not been widely researched in this context. In this paper the ability of energy storage to increase the amount of wind energy accepted onto a network is assessed over a range of round trip storage efficiencies. The results show that energy storage is able to increase the energy accepted onto a distribution network, with the efficiency of the energy storage, energy storage capacity, wind farm size, network losses and network characteristics being important in determining the relative effectiveness of energy storage.