Cost-benefit analyses of storage systems applications for the provision of dispatching services

The paper discusses a set of particularly interesting applications of battery energy storage systems (BESSs) for the provision of dispatching services and presents simulation results of their operation in realistic scenarios, in order to carry out cost/benefit analyses able to assess the profitability of investments or, more often, their distance from the profitability. In fact, in most of the considered case studies, that moreover are referred to possible future regulatory arrangements, the high investment costs of storage systems are not repaid in a reasonable time by the achieved economic benefits. The only two applications resulting potentially profitable concern the primary regulation service with the storage system respectively coupled with a coal fired power plant and with a wind power plant. A significant cost reduction of BESSs is therefore needed, but it is also expected, following improvements of technologies and economies of scale: in such a case, they will have a bright future both in power system applications and in electric mobility.