Evaluation of Storage Energy Requirements for Constant Production in PV Power Plants

This paper analyzes the minimum energy capacity ratings that an energy-storage (ES) system should accomplish in order to achieve a defined constant power production in a photovoltaic (PV) power plant. ES is a key issue for the further integration of intermittent and stochastic renewable energy sources, which are not currently dispatchable due to their dependence on real-time weather conditions, as is the case of PV technology. This paper proposes and describes an energy management strategy (EMS) for operating PV power plants with ES in the future. The goal of this EMS is to endow these power plants with a constant production that can be controlled and hence traded on electricity markets. This paper presents simulated results on the percentage of time throughout the year during which a large-scale PV+ES plant operates properly with different ES ratings and according to different configurations of this EMS. Finally, a test bench was developed, and experimental results validating this EMS were obtained.