Colloquia

Summary

The increasing share of intermittent renewable electricity sources has led to significant price volatility and instances of negative electricity prices. These negative prices often result in the curtailment of renewable generation, effectively wasting surplus energy. Thermal Energy Storage (TES) is a proven, economically feasible, large-scale solution that can help address this mismatch between supply and demand. Furthermore, TES systems utilizing power-to-heat technology can serve as balancing reserve service providers.

This research investigates three types of water-based Tank Thermal Energy Storage for a case study at Twence: atmospheric, two-zone, and pressurized storage. The aim of this study is to assess the economic viability of TES for Twence by capitalizing on price volatility in the day-ahead electricity market and offering balancing reserve capacity. To achieve this, a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model was developed using the PuLP library with a CBC solver to maximize profit.

Using historical data, the model simulates the performance of each system variant to identify the profit-maximizing configuration. The economic feasibility of these configurations is then evaluated using the payback period method. The results demonstrate that the profit-maximizing TES configuration is an economically viable investment for Twence, even under varying market conditions.