Design drivers for the storage system of baseload hybrid power plants

Abstract

For scenarios of high penetration of renewable energy, it becomes increasingly relevant to improve the dispatchability of supply for wind and solar power plants. Baseload power plants, required to produce a minimum power production at all times, are discussed in this context. The baseload constraint can be satisfied with renewable sources when combined with a storage system but at a high cost. This work studies the design drivers of such a storage system when consisting of short and long-term storage. The capacities of the short-term and long-term storage components are calculated as part of a linear optimization problem with the objective of minimizing the cost of baseload, using a metric based on a net present value formulation. Our analysis, based on 10 locations in Northern Europe, highlights a high sensitivity of optimal storage sizing to storage cost assumptions. In addition, the cost of baseload is found to be correlated to the share of renewable power produced above baseload, but not to the correlation between price and wind power, suggesting arbitrage plays a minor role in the business case.