The upcoming transformation from internal combustion vehicles to electric vehicles in the private transport sector, together with the increasing demand for electricity, leads to challenges such as over-loading for the power grid. This study shows a technical and economic analysis to what extent storage systems can be an alternative to conventional grid reinforcement.

The objective is to reduce the peak power at the point of common coupling in existing distribution grids by adapting the control of the battery energy storage system at individual industrial consumer sites. An open-source simulation tool which enables realistic simulation of the effects of storage systems in different operating modes on the distribution grid has been adapted as part of this work. Further information about the additional stress on the storage system is derived from a detailed analysis based on six key characteristics. The results show that with the combined approach both the local peak load and the global peak load can be reduced, while the stress on the energy storage is not significantly increased. The peak load at the point of common coupling is reduced by 5.6 kVA to 56.7 kVA and the additional stress for the storage system is in average for a six-month simulation period only 1.2 full equivalent cycles higher.

Current and predicted costs for storage systems are compared with the costs for cable replacement in the medium-voltage grid and correlations are derived. Accurate co-simulations of storage systems and the distribution grid allow these cost scenarios to be applied to use cases. The results show that the energy related costs for storage systems decrease about 38.5 % from 468 $/kWh to 288 $/kWh from 2020 to 2030. This leads to scenarios, mainly in urban distribution grids, where storage systems are an alternative to conventional grid reinforcement.