1
Optimal Power Flow Analysis of Energy
Storage for Congestion Relief, Emissions
Reduction, and Cost Savings
Zhouxing Hu, Student Member, IEEE, and Ward T. Jewell, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—AC optimal power flow (OPF) simulations are used
to study the effects of large-scale energy storage systems on a
power system. The economic effects are analyzed under several
different conditions, and CO2 emission reductions offered by the
use of storage are considered. The modified IEEE 25-bus
Reliability Test System with energy storage and solar
photovoltaic generation is simulated using commercial OPF
software. The total fuel and emissions costs, and the cost of
renewable energy, are analyzed. The net cost savings and unit
cost savings provided by energy storage are presented as an
economic estimate for constructing an energy storage system.
Congestion relief appears to be an economically-promising
application for currently-available energy storage systems.
Index Terms—Energy storage, optimal power flow, fuel
emission cost.
I. INTRODUCTION
E LECTRICITY is always treated as non-storable because
of the high expense of construction, operation and
maintenance of storage units. There exist a number of methods
to store electricity, including pumped hydro, batteries,
flywheels, electrochemical capacitors, and compressed air. All
techniques for storing energy so far do not have remarkable
economic advantages which have prohibited them from
becoming widespread. However, the trend for energy storage
is definitely larger scale, higher efficiency and lower unit cost.
Depending on the size, efficiency and unit cost, energy storage
can be constructed for generation or transmission and
distribution (T&D) applications [1]. Energy storage for T&D
applications has a relatively smaller size and lower added cost
[1]. According to the technology constraint, pumped hydro
systems are usually large-scale and built for generation
applications, and battery storage systems are usually small-
scale and built for T&D applications.
Nowadays, there is increased interest in energy storage
because of renewable generation, environmental issues, and
smart grid. In order to effectively reduce CO2 emissions, fossil
fuel will be gradually replaced by renewable source to produce
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant
DOE DE-FG36-08GO88149, and by the Power Systems Engineering
Research Center under projects M21 and M24.
Z. Hu is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Wichita State
University, Wichita, KS 67208 USA (e-mail: zxhu@wichita.edu).
W. T. Jewell is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Wichita
State University, Wichita, KS 67208 USA (e-mail: ward.jewell@wichita.edu).
electrical power. Wind and solar are the most abundant
renewable sources for electric generation. Energy converted
from wind and solar becomes more and more competitive in
power markets due to the improvement of technology.
However, the variable nature of renewable energy limits its
large-scale penetration in the power system. Additional
spinning reserves are always assigned with renewable
generators committed to the system to ensure system
reliability. The extra cost and emission of reserve units
becomes another economic and environmental issue. However,
energy storage could be a solution to these issues. Research in
[2] provides reliability evaluations for energy storage along
with large-scale wind generation, and observes some potential
benefits for both the power system operator and wind farm
owners.
In the near future, smart grid technologies will be a
revolution to power system design and operation. The
traditional radial distribution system may become networked.
More parameters will be monitored and communicated
throughout the grid. With information highly shared, charge
and discharge of energy storage embedded into the system can
be intelligently controlled in order to optimize the system
operation.
The benefits of energy storage are demonstrated in [3].
Deferral of new transmission capacity and relief of
transmission congestion is one of the benefits investigated in
this paper. The use of larger storage units to change the unit
dispatch in order to reduce fuel costs is also addressed.
This paper studies the economic impacts to the system of
large-scale energy storage. Alterations of CO2 emissions,
renewable costs, and transmission loss caused by energy
storage are presented as well. The specific type and technique
of energy storage will not be discussed. The cost per kWh to
store electricity for prevailing storage techniques are analyzed
in [1]. Some of those results will be referenced in this paper.
The goal of this paper is to provide insight into the effects of
energy storage on system operating costs and its feasibility for
systems with renewable generation, with and without carbon
prices. The results are intended to guide further research into
the optimal sizing and scheduling of energy storage.
II. METHODOLOGY
Time-stepped ac optimal power flow (OPF) simulation will
be utilized all through this paper. For cases with CO2 emission
considered, a price is assumed for CO2 emissions, and the CO2
emission incorporated cost model which has been developed
 2

in [4] will be built into the OPF simulator. The key function minimizing the total generation costs. Equality and inequality
for total fuel and emissions cost is [4]: constraints are enforced through changes to system controls.
Equality constraints include area MW interchange, bus MW
CO (1) and MVAr power balance, generator voltage setpoints,
interface MW limits, and transmission line and transformer
Where is the price of fuel j in $/MBtu, CO is the given limits. Inequality constraints include generator real and
CO2 price in $/ton, is the CO2 emission factor of fuel j in reactive power limits, interface MW limits, and transmission
ton/MBtu, , , and are polynomial heat rate line and transformer limits [11].
coefficients, and is the real power output of generator i in
MW.
Fuel prices assumed for coal, gas and oil are average fuel
prices of 2008 [5]. Fuel price for nuclear is the average
nuclear price of 2006 [6]. Fuel emission factors for coal, oil
and gas are selected from [7]. The total fuel price plus cost of
CO2 emissions for varying CO2 prices are shown in Table I.
When these prices are used in the conventional ac OPF
analysis, available units are committed according to the total
price and their output characteristics, resulting in reduced CO2
production.

TABLE I
CO2 EMISSION INCORPORATED FUEL PRICE

CO2 CO2 Price ($/ton)

Fuel Emission 0 100 180 200 300 400
Type Factor
(ton/MBtu) CO2 Emission Incorporated Fuel Price ($/MBtu)
Coal 0.0938 2.06 11.44 18.94 20.82 30.20 39.58
Gas 0.0520 9.34 14.54 18.70 19.74 24.94 30.14
Oil 0.0714 16.56 23.70 29.41 30.84 37.98 45.12

Three cases of increasing complexity are studied. All

consider renewable energy in the form of solar photovoltaic
(PV). The first case is simple economic dispatch with no
consideration of system losses or transmission limits and a
simple 12-hour overnight charging and 12-hour discharge
during the day. The case is run with and without prices on
carbon. The second case also considers carbon prices and uses
the same charge / discharge schedule as case 1, but considers
line losses and limits using ac OPF. The third and last case
does not consider carbon prices, but uses a difference energy
storage schedule to address some of the issues identified by
the first two cases.
III. MODEL DESCRIPTION
The modified IEEE 24-bus Reliability Test System (RTS)
[8], Fig. 1 [9] [10], is used for the case study simulations in
this paper. Three 100 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) generators
are added to bus 25 which is directly connected to bus 8, one
of the primary load buses. An energy storage system is added
to bus 24. Its size and location are subject to change. The
simulation is based on a typical peak-load day which is
divided into 24 one-hour periods. The OPF for each hour is
solved using commercial ac OPF software – PowerWorld
Simulator [11].
Linear programming (LP) OPF has been implemented in
this simulator. The LP OPF arrives at the optimal solution by
iterating between a standard power flow solution and a linear
program, then changing system controls to remove any limit
violations. Minimum cost is the objective function,
Fig. 1. Modified IEEE Reliability Test System [9] [10]
A. Generators
There are 12 power plants (G1-G10, GR and GS), with a
total of 37 generators dispatched in this test system. The total
generation capacity is 3,705 MW without considering the
capacity credit for the renewable generators. Classified by fuel
type, generation capacities for coal, gas, oil, nuclear, hydro
and renewable (i.e. solar in this paper) are shown in Fig. 2.
An energy storage system (GS) is treated as a generator (i.e.
pumped hydro or stationary batteries) with a negative or
positive output during its charging or discharging period,
respectively. The energy storage is not automatically
dispatched by OPF because the OPF does not have the ability
to optimize dispatch over a series of hours, or to consider the
effects of storage energy during one period and discharging it
during another. Instead, storage is scheduled for the entire 24-
hour period prior to each simulation. This is common practice
for the scheduling of energy storage and any energy-limited
 3

generation, such as hydroelectric. The cycle efficiency of GS IV. CASE STUDIES

is assumed to be 100% in most of the study cases unless While solving the OPF for this test system, CO2 emission
specified. cost, transmission losses and transmission line limits are
important factors that will affect the cost saving algorithm for
Hydro , Oil , 80 scheduling energy storage on the power system. The unit cost
300 benefit per MWh to store electricity is maximized with storage
efficiency varying from 70% to 100%.
Coal , A. Unconstrained Lossless OPF Case with CO2 Emission
1274 Considered
Nuclear ,
In this case, resistance and MVA limits are removed for all
800
the transmission lines in the modified RTS. With these
simplifications, the geographical locations of generators and
loads will not affect the system OPF results. Without
transmission constraints, there will be no congestion cost on
Solar, 300 Gas , 951 any bus. The marginal energy price becomes the locational
marginal price (LMP) which is identical for all the 25 buses.
Fig. 2. Modified IEEE RTS generation capacity (MW) by fuel type An energy storage system with maximum 100 MW charge /
discharge rate and 1200 MWh capacity is located on bus 24.
Renewable generators (GR) are added to the system in In this case, the location of the storage will not affect the
order to study the cost of renewables operating with and results. This energy storage system is schedule to charge at
without energy storage. Daily output data of solar in the RTS 100 MW during first 12-hour light load period and discharge
is scaled from data on the ERCOT system [12] (see Fig. 3). at 100 MW during the remaining 12-hour heavier load period.
The fuel price and cost model for the renewable generators For simplicity the efficiency is assumed to be 100%.
will not be considered. It is assumed that the renewable In this case, the basic principle of operating energy storage
generators are paid at the LMPs on their bus for each hour. is charging at a lower price energy and returning it back to the
grid to offset some higher price generation. If there is no
250 3000 penalty for CO2 emission, coal has a much cheaper fuel price
than gas and oil, but it has a much higher CO2 emission rate.
2500
200 In this condition, operating energy storage to reduce the daily
Solar Output (MW)

2000 fuel cost will increase the daily CO2 emission. If a CO2
Load (MW)

150
emission cost ($/ton) is added, both unit dispatch and optimal
1500
scheduling of energy storage will be different according to the
100
1000 CO2 emission price.
50 The OPF simulation results for this simple case show that
500
energy storage reduces total fuel+emission costs at all CO2
0 0 prices and reduces CO2 emissions when the CO2 price is
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 higher than 160 $/ton. Fig. 4 plots the changes in total
fuel+emission cost, renewable energy cost (paid to the owner
Time Period (hour)
based on the bus LMP) and CO2 emissions compared with the
Solar Total MW Load
case with no energy storage. Generally, CO2 emission is
Fig. 3 Daily solar generation and load profile reduced by stored energy when the fuel+emission cost of gas
is cheaper than that of coal, i.e., when the price of CO2
emissions is higher than $180/ton.
B. Transmission lines Another observation from this plot is that the highest total
There are 39 transmission lines across the 25-bus network fuel+emission cost savings occurs at 0 CO2 emission price,
rated at two voltage levels: 138 kV and 230 kV. The MVA and the second highest saving occurs at $400/ton CO2
limits for all the branches are enforced in the constrained OPF emission price. The cost reduction by energy storage is almost
simulation. proportional to the price gap between the fuel+emission cost
C. Loads of the fuel, typically coal and gas. At the equilibrium point of
CO2 price (calculated to be 180 $/ton in Table I), the energy
The maximum load in this test system is 2,850 MW. The
storage is not capable of reducing the fuel+emission cost
24-hour load profile for the IEEE RTS is scaled based on a
typical summer day in 2008 (see Fig. 3) [10] retrieved from based on this operating scenario. If assuming that renewable
2008 ERCOT Hourly Load Data Archives [13]. generators are paid at its LMP while generating, renewable
costs at all CO2 prices are slightly reduced by the addition of
storage. This is not a generalized conclusion. Energy storage
might cause a slight rise in the bus LMP in the morning and a
slightly drop in the afternoon. In this case, all the renewable

generators are solar, which has a greater energy generation
during the afternoon. If wind generators are connected to the
grid, the renewable cost change will be difficult to predict.
70000
50000
Daily Cost Change ($)
30000
10000
-10000
-30000
-50000
-70000
0 100
CO2 Price ($/ton)
Fuel-emission cost change ($)
CO2 emission change (ton)
Fig. 4 Cost change and emission change with energy storage
300
Unit Cost Saving ($/MWh)
250
200
150
100
50
0 fuel+emission cost for all the coal, gas and oil units will
0 100
CO2 Price ($/ton)
Fig. 5 Unit cost savings of energy storage at different CO2 prices
Fig. 6 Added cost (COE) vs. discharge time, 10 MW generation application
operating 250 d/year [1]
Based on the capacity of energy storage, the unit cost saving
per MWh energy stored is defined as the net fuel+emission
cost saving divided by the energy charged in a daily cycle.
The unit cost saving in this case is shown in Fig. 5. A simple
estimate of whether use of storage is feasible is obtained by
comparing the unit cost results with the cost to store energy
($/kWh) data provided in Fig. 6 [1], it is clear that none of the
prevailing storage techniques provides any economic
4
advantage in this operating scenario. It is assumed that the size
of the storage will not affect the unit cost, and this energy
storage is operated 250 days per year at a 12 hour charge /
discharge cycle.
1000 B. Constrained OPF Case with CO2 Emission Considered
800
CO2 Emission Change (ton)
When line limits and losses, and thus transmission
600
400 congestion, are considered, the geographical locations of all
200 generators and loads, as well as the energy storage system,
0 will affect the OPF results and total system operating cost. In a
-200 constrained case, the LMP at each bus will be the summation
-400 of its marginal energy price and marginal congestion price.
-600
Thus minimizing the energy price will not be the only factor
-800
-1000
considered while operating an energy storage system.
For this case, the same 100 MW / 1200 MWh storage
200 300 400
system will be operated at bus 24. Based on the conclusions of
the previous case, bus 24 is selected because of its highest
Renewable cost change ($) LMP deviation. Line resistance and limits are included in the
OPF solution.
Results of the system cost and emission changes from the
no-storage case at all CO2 prices can be observed in Fig. 7.
The total fuel+emission cost change and CO2 emission change
are different from the previous case when the CO2 price rises
above 80 $/ton. Energy storage increases the system cost at a
CO2 price between 80 and 180 $/ton and decreases daily CO2
emissions when the CO2 price is close to 80. This is caused by
the transmission constraints and losses. Most of the coal
generators are located remotely from load centers while gas
generators are closer. During the increase of the CO2 price, the
200 300 400 increase, but coal increases faster than gas and oil. When the
fuel+emission price of the coal is close to gas, the OPF will
not dispatch all the coal generators prior to the gas generators
considering the transmission loss, constraints, and other costs.
Thus, the storage increases the daily output of the gas units
and decreases the output of the coal units, resulting in a rise in
total system cost and a fall in total CO2 emissions.
70000 1000
Fuel Emission Cost Change ($)
800
CO2 Emission Change (ton)
50000
600
30000 400
10000 200
0
-10000 -200
-30000 -400
-600
-50000
-800
-70000 -1000
0 100 200 300 400
CO2 Price ($/ton)
Fuel emission cost change ($) Renewable cost change ($)
CO2 emission change (ton)
Fig. 7 Cost change and emission change with energy storage
In this case, renewable cost is increased by energy storage
at 0 CO2 price and is significantly decreased at a $400/ton CO2
price. At 0 CO2 price, charging storage causes an average
 5

increase of 40 $/MWh of congestion price and 20 $/MWh of 120

energy price on bus 25 during 1 am to 4 am and 8 am to 12 pm 100
(see Fig. 8 and Fig. 9). Although the LMP reduces an average

Cost ($/MWh)
of 20 $/MWh between 4 pm and 8 pm, the critical rise of LMP 80

between 8 am and 12 am causes a gross increase for the daily 60

renewable cost. 40
Several solutions could take care of this problem. The first
20
is to reduce the size of storage and charge less in order to
avoid the additional rise of the LMP (see Case C). The second 0
is locating storage closer to load centers (e.g. bus 8) where it 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23
will be more unlikely to cause transmission congestion (see Time Period (hour)
Fig. 10). Renewable cost in this case will be decreased by
25 LMP $/MWh 25 Congestion $/MWh 25 Energy $/MWh
energy storage, and system operating cost will be lower than it
was when the storage was located on bus 24. The third option Fig. 10 LMP of bus 25 with energy storage on bus 8
is to split the one large size energy storage unit into several
small size units which are distributed throughout the power 300
system [3].

Unit Cost Saving ($/MWh)

250
In this case, though, one large-scale energy storage unit is
200
applied on the RTS while the power delivering capability of
its transmission lines are restricted by congestion. Although 150
storage reduces fuel+emission cost and renewable cost for 100
certain CO2 prices, the unit cost saving per MWh energy 50
stored is even lower than for Case A (see Fig. 11). This 0
reduction in the storage benefit is caused by the extra amount -50
of transmission congestion cost and transmission loss that
0 100 200 300 400
resulted from storing energy.
CO2 Price ($/ton)
120 Fig. 11 Unit cost savings of energy storage at different CO2 prices
100
Cost ($/MWh)

80 C. Constrained OPF without consideration of CO2 Emissions

60 From previous OPF simulation results, the transmission
line connected between bus 16 and 24 (see Fig. 1) is the major
40
constraint during the 24 hour period. It causes 15 out of 25
20 buses in the whole system to have positive congestion costs
0 during 2 pm and 9 pm. The reason is that the 300 MW hydro
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 generators (G9) are scheduled to operate from 3 pm to 8 pm.
Keeping Fig. 1 in mind, during peak hours a large amount of
Time Period (hour)
energy flows from the generation area (upper location) to the
25 LMP $/MWh 25 Congestion $/MWh 25 Energy $/MWh load area (lower location) and causes significant congestion
through bus 24. Additionally, most of the large power plants
Fig. 8 LMP of bus 25 without energy storage
located remotely from load centers are coal, nuclear, and
120 hydro generators (i.e. G7, G8, G9, G5, G6 and G10 in Fig. 1)
which have an advantage on fuel or emission price, or both,
100
and are always dispatched. Consequently, the highest marginal
Cost ($/MWh)

80 congestion price of 337.8 $/MWh occurs on bus 24 at 7 pm.

60 Compared to the significant fluctuation of congestion
prices, marginal energy prices of the whole system stay
40
between 18.5 $/MWh and 88.1 $/MWh. This energy price
20 variation is almost identical to the previous case. It reflects the
0 unit commitment situation on the system. Without
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 incorporating a CO2 emission price, a high energy price
indicates that more gas generators are dispatched.
Time Period (hour) The variation in LMP on bus 24 with no energy storage on
25 LMP $/MWh 25 Congestion $/MWh 25 Energy $/MWh the system, shown in Fig. 12, is primarily caused by the
significant rise of the marginal congestion price between 2 pm
Fig. 9 LMP of bus 25 with energy storage
and 9 pm. In comparison with the congestion price, the
marginal energy price has a much smaller change during peak
 6

hours. In order to maximize the unit system operating cost
saving that achieved by installing energy storage, the location,
size and schedule of the storage will be selected based on
relieving the transmission congestion previously observed on
the whole system. Unlike the previous cases, the energy price
will not be fully considered in scheduling storage operation.
renewable bus, is illustrated in Fig. 15 and Fig. 16. If it is
assumed that all the solar generators are paid based on their
LMPs, renewable costs (and income of renewable owners)
will be reduced as long as the congestion prices drop. Both
fuel+emission cost and renewable cost are reduced after
installing energy storage, as shown in Fig. 17.

450 60
400

Energy Storage Output (MW)

350 40
Cost ($/MWh)

300
250 20
200
150 0
100 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23
50 -20
0
-40
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23

Time Period (hour) -60

Time Period (hour)
24 LMP $/MWh 24 Congestion $/MWh 24 Energy $/MWh
eff.=100% eff.=90% eff.=80% eff.=70%

Fig. 12 LMP of bus 24 without energy storage Fig. 14 Detailed schedule of energy storage

450 160
400
140
350
120
Cost ($/MWh)

Cost ($/MWh)

300
100
250
200 80
150 60
100 40
50 20
0 0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23

Time Period (hour) Time Period (hour)

24 LMP $/MWh 24 Congestion $/MWh 24 Energy $/MWh 25 LMP $/MWh 25 Congestion $/MWh 25 Energy $/MWh

Fig. 13 LMP of bus 24 with energy storage Fig. 15 LMP of bus 25 without energy storage

Through observations of the results of previous cases, and 160

with 100% storage cycle efficiency assumed, an energy 140
storage system with size / capacity of 53 MW / 222 MWh is
Cost ($/MWh)

120
placed on bus 24. Detailed schedule of energy storage is 100
shown in Fig. 14. The size of the storage is determined by the 80
maximum power output that is need for totally eliminating the 60
congestion cost on bus 24. The schedule for peak-hour 40
operation (discharge) is settled based on removing congestion. 20
The schedule for off-peak operation (charge) is settled based 0
on the demand of the energy for discharging (i.e. 222 MWh at 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23
100% efficiency). It is important to note that energy storage
Time Period (hour)
installed on a bus with a higher difference in its daily marginal
congestion price will result in a higher system cost saving per 25 LMP $/MWh 25 Congestion $/MWh 25 Energy $/MWh

unit energy stored. Fig. 16 LMP of bus 25 with energy storage

As a result of discharging storage in the afternoon, the
congestion cost during peak hours is eliminated on bus 24.
The tradeoff is that the congestion cost during off-peak hours
increases slightly because of storage charging. Fig. 13 shows
the LMP of bus 24 with this operation of the energy storage
system. Meanwhile, the LMP change on bus 25, which is the
The net reduction of system operating cost does not have
much meaning unless divided by energy storage capacity. The
result is unit cost saving per MWh energy stored. In this case,
the result is 238 $/MWh (i.e. 0.238 $/kWh). Compare with the
data provided in Fig. 6, Na/S battery storage (0.20 $/kWh) and
 7

pumped hydro (0.08 $/kWh) have economic benefits in this TABLE II

DETAILED OPF RESULTS FOR CASE C
test system. Note that the length of the discharge cycle in the
simulation is 6 hr (i.e. from 3 pm to 8 pm), and the cost effect No Energy Storage
Daily OPF
of storage size is ignored. However, it is arbitrary to assume Results
Energy
Storage 100% eff. 90% eff. 80% eff. 70% eff.
that energy storage has 100% cycle efficiency. Although
Coal
technologies improve rapidly, the prevailing technique of (MWh)
26084 26908 26932 26958 26993
large scale energy storage have reached efficiency of around
Gas (MWh) 5064 4256 4256 4256 4256
70% to 95% [1]. For generation applications, efficiencies of
Na/S battery energy storage and pumped hydro are reported to Oil (MWh) 0 0 0 0 0
be 77% and 75% respectively [1]. Energy storage with lower Nuclear
19200 19200 19200 19200 19200
(MWh)
efficiencies (i.e. 90%, 80% and 70%) are also simulated in this Hydro
case. Without considering renewable cost reduction, fuel cost 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600
(MWh)
savings by every MWh of energy stored are roughly $170 (i.e. Solar
1682 1682 1682 1682 1682
0.17 $/kWh) at 77% efficiency (see Fig. 18). Referring to Fig. (MWh)
6, pumped hydro is the only storage technique that has CO2
emission 29872 30210 30234 30267 30310
economic benefit to apply in this case so far. (ton)
Fuel-
emission 1184518 1131693 1132217 1132940 1133891
1,400,000
cost ($)
124790 Renewable
1,200,000 124790 102878 103320 103264 103264
102878 cost ($)
Total
1,000,000 energy loss 1065 1080 1079 1075 1069
(MWh)
800,000
V. CONCLUSION
600,000 1184518 1131693
This paper simulated three cases to examine the economic
400,000 potential of an energy storage system. Large-scale energy
storage systems, able to shift a certain amount of daily energy
200,000 consumed from higher fuel cost generation to lower cost
generation, could reduce the system operating cost. With CO2
0 emission cost incorporated into the fuel cost, daily CO2
1 2 emission could be reduced by energy storage along with
system operating cost. However, present technology, cost and
Fuel-Emission cost ($/day)
cycle efficiency of storage, transmission limits and power
Renewable cost ($/day) losses in the system are major restrictions for large-scale
Fig. 17 Fuel+emission cost and renewable cost before (column 1) and after
energy storage becoming economic on the power system.
(column 2) installing energy storage In order to achieve a much higher unit cost saving based on
every MWh of electricity being stored, a relatively smaller
300
energy storage system could be used to relieve transmission
congestion during peak hours. Pumped hydro storage appears
Unit Cost Saving ($/MWh)

250 to be economically feasible for this application, but it needs

200 proper geographical location. Na/S battery storage is also
close to economically feasible in this test system.
150
Constructing new transmission lines is always an option for
100 relieving congestion on the grid. If congestion only happens
50 during several peak hours or a short period for some days, the
load on the new transmission line, and thus its benefits, may
0
be too low to justify its construction. Energy storage could be
100% 90% 80% 70% a better choice in such circumstances. In addition, an energy
Storage Efficiency storage system has many other potential benefits and is
flexible so that schedules can be changed to accommodate
Fig. 18 Unit cost saving of energy storage at different efficiency many kinds of system demand.

Another observation is that CO2 emissions do not increase VI. REFERENCES

drastically after storing energy because the energy is not
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energy is not dispatched to offset higher-price gas generation.
Detailed CO2 emission data and other results are shown in
Table II.
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