Techno-economically Optimal Configuration of Energy Storage for Western Inner Mongolia

Due to the gradual increase in the installed capacity proportion of renewable energy in western Inner Mongolia in recent years, large-scale energy storage needs to be deployed to solve the problems caused by the intermittency and fluctuation of renewable energy to the power system. This paper designs and proposes a techno-economically optimal configuration model for energy storage in western Inner Mongolia to achieve the optimal energy storage configuration in this region. Specifically, the site selection and type selection for energy storage in western Inner Mongolia are studied by taking into account both technical and economic performance. Then, with the goal of suppressing wind and photovoltaic (PV) output fluctuation maximally and maximizing the revenue of energy storage projects, including their external value, a techno-economically optimal configuration model for energy storage is constructed and solved with the NSGA-II algorithm. An empirical study of a wind and PV resource aggregating area in western Inner Mongolia shows that when the suppression rate of wind and PV output fluctuation is controlled within 30% and the ratio of PV installed capacity to wind power installed capacity is low, deploying a certain scale of energy storage can obtain remarkable effects in both the technical and economic aspects. Finally, an energy storage configuration scheme based on the site selection, type selection, and empirical analysis results is proposed for western Inner Mongolia.