Storage covers power transfers, load following, frequency control, and nonstop supply.
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Storage technologies are ranked according to their charge and discharge durations.
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Gross profit is increasing with charge and discharge durations.
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Storage provides economic savings for peak-load and mid-load plants.
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Storage is still too costly to be a perfect substitute for peak generation units.
Abstract
Electricity storage encompasses a disparate list of technologies such as pumped-storage hydroelectricity, compressed-air energy storage, chemical batteries and flywheels. These technologies can provide the electricity system with heterogeneous services of energy transfers across months, weeks, days or intra-days, power transfers for an hour, a few minutes or seconds, and can assist operators in load following, frequency control, and uninterrupted power supply.
The paper presents a unified economic analysis of these technologies and services. We underline the role of charge and discharge durations as a criterion for economic segmentation of technologies and services. We highlight the complementary value of storage in electricity systems with a high share of low variable cost and low carbon generation (nuclear, hydro, wind power, solar photovoltaic). We also underline the limited substitution value of storage for generation with high variable cost (gas combustion-turbines or gas-oil motor engines), given the high cost of state-of-the-art storage technologies, the current low cost of fossil fuels and low price of carbon emissions.
