Assessing the Economics of Distributed Storage Systems at the End Consumer Level

Distributed storage systems at the end consumer level could provide a remarkable load shifting potential that could be used to increase the demand side’s flexibility without requiring behavioral changes from the end consumer. This article analyzes the economics of such storage systems with regard to the storage technology applied and the quality of price and load forecasts, which are needed to derive day-ahead operation schedules for the storage systems. The assumed technology parameters base on technologies in a developmental stage. Furthermore, the analyses assume that flexible electricity tariffs are available at the end consumer level. The simulation results reveal theoretically maximal savings for a standard household of 17% on the annual electricity bill. Practically, about 14-15% savings are realizable due to load and price forecast errors. Thus, besides providing significant load shifting potential that will foster the integration of renewable energy resources, such systems potentially have a positive economic impact on the overall system cost.