Choice of battery energy storage for a hybrid renewable energy system

Abstract

There are certain unelectrified villages across the Indian subcontinent where providing supply through thegrid is difficult due to forest cover or mountainous terrain. The most feasible option is to provide off-grid electrificationthrough renewable energy resources such as solar or wind energy. These intermittent sources do not promise a 24 × 7supply system. Thus, along with solar or wind energy systems, it becomes important to use a renewable resource, such asbiomass, which is available in abundance in rural areas. The need for battery energy storage becomes mandatory in orderto store the surplus energy produced by renewable resources and supply it at a time of insufficiency. Currently, manybattery technologies are evolving with better characteristics than conventional battery systems in terms of efficiency,response time, deep cycle discharge, lifecycle, etc. The aim of this study is, firstly, to design and model a hybridrenewable energy system (HRES), using photovoltaic (PV)-Biogas (BG) system with HOMER software. Secondly, weaim to test this model using three different battery types: advanced lead acid (LA) batteries, lithium ion (LI) batteries,and zinc-bromine (Zn-Br) flow batteries (FB), used individually. Using these three battery technologies, the HRESs arethen compared in terms of system sizing, economy, technical performance, and environmental stability. A case study forthe unelectrified village of Madhya Pradesh (MP) is discussed to suggest the practical aspect of the comparative analysis.The results demonstrate that the HRES using LI batteries is the most favorable choice. Using this configuration, theeconomic parameters, including total net present cost (NPC) and levelized cost of energy (LCOE), are found to be lowest.The technical parameters, including battery state of charge (SOC), capacity shortage, and environmental parameters($CO_2$ emissions) are found to be optimum.