Economic feasibility and optimisation of an energy storage system for Portland Wind Farm (Victoria,Australia)

This paper presents the details of a theoretical study of the economic advantages of using large-scale energy storage to complement a wind farm in a base-load dominated electricity grid. A computer model is developed which simulates the operation of several energy storage systems when used with the 190-MW Portland Wind Farm (PWF) located in Portland, Victoria, Australia. A variety of operating strategies are compared with the results of a dynamic programming model which finds the maximum possible revenue which a given system can generate for a set of input conditions. Three energy storage systems are modelled and costed: Pumped Seawater Hydro Storage (PSHS), Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES), and Thermal Energy Storage (TES). It is found that CAES is the most profitable storage medium, requiring a capital expenditure of A$140 M and generating a rate of return (ROR) of 15.4%. The ROR for PSHS was 9.6%, and for TES was 8.0%. Therefore, a significant investment opportunity exists for the installation of an energy storage system in this wind farm. It is therefore highly recommended that CAES is investigated further with the aim of introducing large-scale energy storage to PWF and other similar wind turbine installations.