European town microgrid and energy storage application study

The aim of this paper is to size a vanadium redox flow battery energy storage system (VRB-ESS^®) for a midsized European town microgrid project in order to minimize grid purchases and reduce spilled wind energy. HOMER™, Matlab^® and Simulink^® software tools have been used for the analysis. The model inputs are based on one year negative secondary reserve requirement data, extrapolated 5 months load data, multiple sites wind generation data and sourced from HOMER™ PV generation data. Simulation results show that by utilizing 3MW × 4 hours VRB-ESS^®, the benefit to the customer is € 1.206 million/year; Grid purchase frequency (649 times/year without VRB-ESS^®) is decreased by 54.1%; simultaneously, grid independency (75.8% without VRB-ESS^®) is increased by 6.2%; and the amount of spilled wind energy is reduced by 13.1%. As a result, a 2 to 3 MW VRB-ESS^®, with between 4 to 6 hours of storage duration, is recommended.