Optimizing A Battery Energy Storage System For Primary Frequency Control
Optimizing A Battery Energy Storage System For Primary Frequency Control
I. INTRODUCTION
Fig. 1. Principal diagram of the BESS.
TABLE I
CHARACTERISTICS OF DIFFERENT BATTERIES
TABLE II
REQUIREMENTS FOR PRIMARY FREQUENCY CONTROL RESERVE IN UCTE
Fig. 2. NPV of cost for different types of 10-MW BESS and PHS versus vari-
able capacity and NPV of profit (dashed horizontal line) obtained by selling
primary reserve in Germany.
Fig. 2 shows the NPV of cost for 10-MW BESS units as a func- system operators (TSOs) members of the Union for the Co-or-
tion of BESS capacity. dination of Transmission of Electricity (UCTE) (synchronous
The NPV of cost for a pumped hydro storage (PHS) plant is interconnection of central European countries) to achieve the
plotted on the same diagram for comparison. PHS is the unbeat- required generation-load balance (see Fig. 3).
able storage solution for a discharge time higher than 0.75 h in A deviation of system frequency will cause primary con-
comparison to any BESS technology; however, its application is trollers of all generators subject to primary control to respond
very limited due to geographical and environmental constraints. within a few seconds to stop frequency drop/rise. Requirements
Among batteries, lead-acid BESS is the most economic solution for primary reserve in UCTE are shown in Table II [13]. Since
for a discharge time up to 1.25 h. the early days of UCTE, the primary frequency control was a
Fig. 2 anticipates results for the market price for the primary mandatory service organized through the vertically integrated
reserve service and results for the capacity minimization to be electrical utilities making all large thermal and hydro units
discussed below. ( MW) available for the provision of primary reserve.
During the last decade, markets for ancillary services have
III. PRIMARY FREQUENCY CONTROL RESERVE been established in many European countries. Under free
The electric power system is unique in that power production market conditions, the control philosophy is still respected, but
and consumption must be matched instantaneously and contin- the TSOs do not exercise direct authority over the power plants.
uously. Disturbances in this balance cause a deviation of system Other entities such as loads, distributed generation, and energy
frequency from a set-point value and reduce the quality of power storage have the right, not an obligation, to offer frequency
supply. Therefore, each power system operator is obliged to control reserves as long as they fulfill technical and commer-
maintain a sufficient amount of active power in reserve to com- cial requirements set by the TSO. Currently, primary reserve
pensate for the worst credible contingency (loss of the largest markets are local; cross border reserve markets, however, are
generation or transmission facility). being discussed and will be established in the near future [14].
V. BESS DIMENSIONING
Fig. 4. Prices for primary frequency control reserve in Germany in 2001-2007. To determine the minimal BESS capacity, we have modeled
the actual BESS operation and adapted the operating algorithm
to measured frequency data of the UCTE grid. The minimal con-
ment proportional to the actual amount of energy supplied or ceivable BESS capacity for the contracted primary reserve
consumed. All suppliers are paid a fixed price for the whole is limited to 0.25 hours, since the BESS has to furnish pri-
tendering period per kW of “standby” reserve. Thus, the reserve mary reserve for at least 15 min (see Table II). The realistic min-
availability payment can be calculated as a product of contracted imum will be higher because primary control events can follow
reserve power in kW, the primary reserve price (Euro/kW/pe- each other at short intervals so that there is not enough time to
riod), and the tendering period (1). The primary reserve price is recharge the BESS. For this reason, the recharge strategy has
based on the final accepted bid submitted to the TSO as follows: a strong influence on the optimization result. Another issue is
the use of emergency resistors. While they help to reduce the
Payment Reserve Price Period (1) needed capacity of the BESS unit by dissipating energy during
rare events when an extreme frequency excursion occurs while
The German market for primary frequency reserve has been es-
the BESS happens to be fully charged, we propose to use them
tablished in 2001 and has the longest historic records in UCTE.
as infrequently as possible. This goal enters as a side condition
Awarding of contracts for the provision of primary reserve is
into the optimization. It would be neither an environmental nor
realized in a nondiscriminatory manner on the basis of public
an economic optimum to avoid emergency resistors completely.
tenders. Fig. 4 illustrates the results of tenders in four German
TSOs starting from 2001. The current average price for primary A. UCTE Frequency Profile
reserve is about 60 Euro/kW/six month. Thus, the annual pay-
The measured UCTE frequency for several months of 2005
ment for keeping a primary reserve of MW in Germany is
has been obtained from the Swiss coordinator—ETRANS. Mea-
120 k Euro.
surements have 1 Hz of sampling with less than 1 mHz of accu-
racy. Fig. 5 shows the measured UCTE frequency in April 2005.
IV. ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF BESS APPLICATION The UCTE rules [13] specify the nominal frequency 50 Hz
FOR PRIMARY FREQUENCY CONTROL RESERVE
and noncritical frequency window of mHz. This window
To determine the economic viability of BESS application allows avoiding a calling up of primary control at near nominal
for primary frequency control, the total revenue from selling frequency.
reserve must be compared with capital, operating, The main observation from this data is that the frequency
and maintenance (O&M) costs over the BESS life cycle quality in UCTE is maintained very well. Most of the time
(70%), the frequency in UCTE stays within the noncritical
window of mHz. There are only few frequency excursions
Profit (2) outside of mHz per month. A frequency deviation of
Revenue mHz was never reached throughout the year 2005. High
(3) and low frequency deviations are symmetrical over the long
period (month).
Cost In the short term, however, there are many deviations, and
(4) they are not necessarily balanced. They can occur at random
points in time with random amplitude and random repetition
In these equations, is the BESS life cycle and the dis- rates. As the frequency deviates to values higher than 50.020
count rate (here years, %). Revenue and Cost Hz, the primary frequency controller has to absorb power; as the
are annual values. The revenues depend on the primary reserve frequency deviates to values below 49.980 Hz, it has to supply
prices and are subject to uncertainty. In this work, we use rev- power (see the left-hand side of Fig. 6).
enues of 120 Euro/kW/year. Looking back to Fig. 2 provides a The power-frequency (p-f) characteristic of the primary
first impression on the potential benefit of the BESS application. frequency controller is linear outside the noncritical frequency
from selling MW of primary reserve during 20 window (see then right-hand side of Fig. 6). It is defined in the
1262 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 22, NO. 3, AUGUST 2007
TABLE III
RESULTS OF STATISTIC ANALYSIS OF PRIMARY RESERVE POWER CURVE
grid code [13], which states that the full primary reserve
has to be activated when the frequency deviation reaches
mHz. As an example, we choose a contracted primary
reserve Pn (nominal power of the BESS) of 2 MW, which is
0.06% of the total UCTE primary reserve. The BESS follows
the frequency profile; however, its influence on the frequency The curve named “No recharge” in Fig. 8 shows the change
is neglected. in the BESS state of charge (SoC) upon furnishing primary fre-
The p-f characteristic permits the transformation of the mea- quency control reserve in April 2005. Due to the limited BESS
sured frequency deviations into a required output/input power efficiency, the overall SoC trend leads to a continuous discharge
for every second (see Fig. 7). The duration, the maximum power, of the BESS in the long run. In this case, the minimum required
and the energy of each discharging/charging pulse have been an- BESS capacity for one month (April 2005) is 1.62 hours, a
alyzed in Table III. large and costly BESS capacity. This is of course not a prac-
tical operating strategy; the BESS must rather be recharged at
B. Simulation of BESS Supplying Primary Reserve in UCTE certain time periods in order to maintain a reasonable state of
charge during the course of operation.
1) BESS With No Additional Charging: We start the analysis 2) BESS With Additional Charging: In a second stage, we
with an unrealistic case for illustration purposes only: a BESS appended the operating rules in the following way:
with an efficiency of 70% that is charged and discharged only in • Recharge the battery up to 100% when the frequency is
function of the frequency variation with no additional charging. inside the noncritical window .
At the beginning of the month, the BESS is 100% charged, and • Use a small recharge power (a few percent of ).
then, it supplies/absorbs power depending on the system fre- • If the battery is full (100%), absorb power with auxiliary
quency variation (see Fig. 7). resistors.
With the given p-f characteristic, the operating rules are very The required minimum BESS capacity is drastically reduced
simple: with an increase in BESS recharge power. Fig. 8 shows the state
• Discharge the battery when mHz. of charge of the BESS with efficiency 70% as a function of
• Charge the battery when mHz. time and recharge power 1%, 3%, and 5% of . The higher
OUDALOV et al.: OPTIMIZING A BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEM FOR PRIMARY FREQUENCY CONTROL 1263
TABLE IV
BESS PARAMETERS AND VARIABLES FOR OPTIMIZATION
TABLE V
RESULTS OF BESS CAPACITY OPTIMIZATION
The objective function is to maximize the profit (2)
Payment
(7)
current battery system costs and current market prices for the [10] T. De Vries, J. McDowall, N. Umbricht, and G. Linhofer, “A solution
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on the high side. An economically optimum BESS for primary
frequency control includes emergency resistors to dissipate en- Alexandre Oudalov received the Ph.D. degree
ergy during rare events when an extreme over-frequency excur- in electrical engineering in 2003 from the Swiss
sion occurs while the BESS is fully charged. Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL),
Lausanne, Switzerland.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT Since 2004, he has been a Research Engineer in
the Information Technologies Department at ABB
The authors would like to thank G. Linhofer (ABB Switzer- Switzerland, Corporate Research, Daettwil-Baden,
land) and W. Sattinger (ETRANS) for their contributions. Switzerland. His research interests include power
system control, distributed generation, energy
storage, and distribution automation.
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