Feasibility study of novel seasonal energy storage technologies for residential systems

Master thesis (2021)

Authors

F. Corvaglia Mechanical Engineering

Contributors

R. Kortlever Large Scale Energy Storage - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (supervisor 1)
G.R. Chandra Mouli DC systems, Energy conversion & Storage - EEMCS (supervisor 2)
N.H. van der Blij DC systems, Energy conversion & Storage - EEMCS (supervisor 2)
Faculty
Mechanical Engineering
Copyright: © 2021 Francesca Corvaglia
Optimization Hydrogen Storage Energy Storage Batteries Residential Renewable Energy Integration Photovoltaic Systems
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Published Date

19-11-2021

Language

English

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Faculty

Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

The growing global energy demand and correlated rise in carbon emissions is forcing us to increase the use of renewable sources. The residential sector represents a large part of the total energy consumption, and European governments are investing in distributed PV to increase the renewable share in this sector. However, on top of the solar power variability, residential systems are also characterized by very unstable load profiles. This issue can be solved by incorporating energy storage, that has many technical and economic benefits for the prosumer, especially if a long-term seasonal storage technology is used. Among all the available storage types, after an extensive literature study, some developing technologies proved to be suitable for this purpose: redox flow batteries (all-vanadium, hydrogen-bromide, zinc-bromide) and hydrogen systems.

For this work, a model was built in MATLAB Simulink to study and reproduce the behaviour of these storage systems in a grid-connected residential environment, and an optimization was set up to find the optimal sizing of the components and investigate the economic feasibility of the whole system. The models results proved that in the present scenario, storage integration is still too expensive with these technologies. However, future projections with different incentive scenarios demonstrate the potential of vanadium and zinc-bromine batteries, and highlight a dramatic cost reduction for hydrogen systems.