You are on page 1of 21

Lithium ion batteries integrated with photovoltaics: A review on battery storage

systems, commercial viability and battery management system.

Pranav Sharma 1 Dr Sandip Deshmukh 2

Department of Mechanical Engineering, BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus

Abstract: Lithium ion batteries have immense potential for energy storage because of
its immense benefits like deeper charging, higher energy density, low environmental
impacts, high calendar life over the present storage solution like lead acid, nickel
cadmium, salt water. This has made Li-ion batteries for use in various application like
electric vehicles, mobile phones, micro-grids, notebooks and emerging technologies like
PV modules. Integration of lithium ion with PV has increased at a rate of 300% percent in
the last decade owing to the immense research and development in the sector which has
cut down its cost per unit KWh from 800$/KWh to 300$/KWh in the recent times. Self
sustainability, peak shaving and going completely off-grid for households and
commercials consumers are the major application for the battery energy storage systems
in the future when integrated with PV. ROI is an important factor from an investor’s point
of view, with the increased development in the lithium ion sector, break even in terms of
years are coming down making it an attractive option for household use for storage. The
paper aims to review the technical-economic analysis for the battery storage application
with ROI and based on storage price, battery ageing, depth of charge, battery
optimization when integrated with PV modules based on factors like SOC, SOH
increasing the longevity of the battery is also reviewed in the paper.

Keywords: State of charge (SOC), State of health (SOH), Feed-in-tariff (FIT), Battery
energy storage systems (BESS), Return on investment (ROI), Depth of Discharge(DOD)
1.Introduction

The rapid depleting conventional energy sources and today’s continuously increasing
energy demand have led to the intensive research for new, more efficient, and green
power plants, with advanced technology. In recent times, new energy and clean fuel
technologies are being intensively pursued and explored due to the increasing
environmental concern worldwide, increased penetration of PV technology in the recent
era has increased the demand for storage which can only be fulfilled by implementation of
lithium ion batteries. PV produced electricity is either sold to the public utilities or come in
contracts with the companies that sell the electricity to the DISCOM’s or Central Grid by
the means of Power Purchase Agreements ( PPA) or by the mean of fixed or floating
FIT’s ( Feed in Tariff) .Thus the solar plant does not sell electricity directly to the
consumers, hence storage of this electricity can be a crucial advancement for people to
be independent and self sustained for their electricity use and generation, places with
rough terrain or places where the grid connectivity is not there can benefit majorly from
the storage of solar.

Amongst the present storage solution causes a lot of environmental degradation because
of toxins present in it, lithium ion batteries on contrary requires very less mining because
they use less raw materials and are easy to recycle and reuse, as a result the
environmental impact is less, many industries and factories are developing methods to
harness renewable energy sources to power itself so that the carbon footprints can be
decreased.

Lead acid has been around for over 100 years and was a market force for the foreseeable
past due to its low cost and established manufacturing base and have been used for a
wide range of applications in the past due to the advantage of its lower cost, robust,
tolerance to overcharging, low internal impedance but slowly with advancements in the
lithium ion battery technology, they are getting replaced rapidly by Li-ion.

2
Flooded Lead Acid VRLA Lead acid Lithium Ion
Energy Density 80 100 250
(Wh/L)
Specific Energy 30 40 150
(Wh/kg)
Regular Yes No No
Maintenance
Initial Cost($/KWh) 65 120 320
estimate and
approximate
market rate
Cycle life 1,200 @50% 1,000 @ 50% 1,900 @90%
Typical SOC 50% 50% 80%
Temperature Degrades above Degrades above Degrades above
Sensitivity 25° C 25° C 45° C

Efficiency 100% @20hr rate 100% @20hr rate 100% @20hr rate

80% @4hr rate 80% @4hr rate 99% @4hr rate

60% @1hr rate 60% @1hr rate 92% @1hr rate

Voltage Increment 2V 2V 3.7V

Table 1: VRLA, Flooded Lead acid, Li-ion Comparison

It is clear from the following table that the lithium ion batteries have the following
advantages over other alternatives:

1. High Voltage
2. Low Self Discharge and superior Storability
3. Long term discharge
4. Wide Operating Temperature
5. Superior Safety
6. Electrolyte Leakage Resistance

Apart from the following advantages the lithium ion batteries provides of the higher energy
density and specific energy which comes in compact size and lighter weights when
compared to its alternates like lead acid, nickel cadmium.

3
Fig 1: Comparison of energy density and specific energy

1.1 Working Principle

Batteries are a collection of electrochemical cells. The main characteristic of the


electrochemical cell is the transduction of chemical energy into electrical energy and its
reverse, thus enabling rechargeable energy storage. The three main constituents of a
lithium ion cell are: an anode (which is oxidized), a cathode (that is reduced) and the
electrolyte. When the cell is connected to an external load, an electrochemical reduction-
oxidation (redox) or charge-transfer reaction transfers electrons from the anode to the
cathode. This transfer converts the chemical energy stored in the active material to
electrical energy which flows as current through the external circuit. The exchange of
electrons takes place at the electrode / electrolyte interfaces; the oxidation reaction
providing electrons to the external circuit and the reduction reaction consuming these
electrons from the external circuit. The electrolyte is the medium of transfer of the positive
ions between the electrodes.

As the cell discharges current, its voltage drops. The chemical energy released is
determined by the difference between the standard Gibbs free energy chemical potential
of the two electrodes. The theoretical open circuit voltage of a cell is measured at 25°C
and at 1M concentration or 1atm pressure. However, all this voltage is not available for
use due to voltage drops within the passive components inside the cell. The basic
chemical reactions inside a LiCoO2 cell (as a representative lithium-ion cell) are:

4
Fig 2 : Stoichiometric Interaction at electrode

At the anode:

LixC6 + xLi+ + xe- ↔ LiC6 (1)

At the cathode:

LiCoO2 ↔ Li(1-x)CoO2 + xLi+ + xe- (2)

Overall Reaction:

LixC6 + LiCoO2 ↔ LiC6 + Li(1-x)CoO2 (3)

The cell has five regions, a composite positive electrode(Cathode), a composite negative
electrode(Anode), a separator and two electrode current collector made of copper and
aluminum respectively. The cathode and anode are separated by an electrolyte which is
LiF6. Lithium metal oxides are used for the positive electrode while petroleum coke or
graphite is used to build the negative electrode. When the discharge process occurs, the
positive electrons are readily accepted by the positive electrode while complete lithiation
occurs at the negative electrode. During the discharge process, intercalation occurs
between the negative electrode and the electrolyte and at the same time intercalation
occurs between the positive electrode and LiO2 Oxide, which causes a concentration
gradient.

5
Chemistry Type Cathode Anode

Lithium Cobalt oxide (LCO) LiCoO2 Graphite/Hard


carbon( LiC6)
Lithium manganese Oxide ( LMO) Graphite/Hard
LiMn2O4 carbon( LiC6)
Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Graphite/Hard
Oxide (NMC) LiNiMnCoO2 carbon( LiC6)
Lithium Nickel Cobalt Aluminum Graphite/Hard
Oxide (NCA) LiNiCoAlO2 carbon( LiC6)
Graphite/Hard
Lithium Iron Phosphate(LFP) LiFePO4 carbon( LiC6)

Lithium Titanate (LTO) LiCoO2 Li4Ti5O12


Table 2: Summary of lithium ion chemistries:

2. Battery Management

State of charge (SOC) and State of health (SOH) are the two main parameters to define a
battery state of function (SOF) for a battery energy storage system. SOC is the ratio of
charge of the battery which can do work to the maximum charge obtained when the
battery is completely charged, SOC is a thermodynamic parameter of the battery which
basically defines the potential energy stored in the battery, factors like ageing, irreversible
chemical and physical reactions during the lifetime of the battery deteriorate the battery
over the period of its lifetime. SOH can be defined as the state of the battery with respect
to its state of beginning.

2.1 Cell capacity

Cell capacity can be defined as the amount of charge available in it for discharge, it
depends on a lot of factors like the amount of active electrolyte, the surface area of the
electrode and is expressed in the unit of ampere-hours (A-h), the cell capacity depends
on the following factors:

1. Discharge current and discharge time


2. No of charge & discharge cycles
3. Inner cell temperature
4. Storage time (Self-discharge)
5. Voltage at end of discharge

In defining the cell capacity, its usually narrows down to 3 factors, Inner-cell temperature
(T), discharge current (I), Discharge time, the value of voltage of the end is usually
described by the manufacturer and is controlled by the power electronic devices.

6
Cell Capacity = CQ = CQ ( I,T)

The cell capacity is always a decreasing function of the discharge current, if the discharge
rate is low it means higher the charge delivered, high discharge current means low cell
capacity. Higher electrolyte temperature results in higher cell capacity but also decreases
the overall cell life in general. With the battery storage system the manufacturer specifies
the discharge current rate and time so that the battery can perform as per its full design
capacity. Rated or nominal capacity is different from the physical or theoretical capacity of
a cell, which is dependent upon the active material in the cell and is based upon the total
amount of energy that can be stored or extracted from the cell when manufactured. It can
be reached by discharging the cell with a very small current at the specified temperature.
The measured or standard capacity is the amount of energy that the cell delivers under
the manufacturer-specified standard conditions, anytime during the life of the cell, and
usually decreases with cell ageing. The standard capacity may even be higher than the
nominal capacity initially but gradually reduces with cell ageing. The practical or actual
capacity is the amount of charge a cell delivers under any given temperature and
discharge rate during its life.

The ratio of cells actual capacity to its nominal capacity is called the cell
efficiency factor, the actual capacity of the cell maybe more than the nominal capacity but
anyhow it can never be more than the theoretical capacity, therefore the physical and the
nominal capacity of the cell is fixed at the manufacturer’s end by the cell chemistry,
standard and actual capacity may change over the life cycle.

Fig 3: Visual Representation of different cell capacity

2.2 State of Charge (SOC)

SOC is defined as the “Percentage of maximum charge present inside a lithium ion
battery (LIB), during a discharge process its SOC can be defined as:

7
𝒕
SOCT= SOCO – 1/C( 𝟎
𝒊𝒅𝒕

Where SOCT is the charge at any given moment during the discharge of the battery,
(
SOCO is the initial charge on the battery after the discharge process and ) 𝑖𝑑𝑡 is the the
integral of discharge current during the process, C is the cell capacity, depending upon
the manufacturer C is defined as the “nominal capacity” or sometimes as “rated capacity.

A SOC system is shown in the figure, the battery/cells are connected in either in series or
in parallel, an analog to digital converter is added to convert the analog signals like
voltage, temperature into digital signals, based on the following data,
microcontroller/microprocessor estimates the SOC of the battery using the predefined
algorithms, RAM (Random Access Memory) and ROM (Read Only Memory) are used by
the SOC. The ROM stores basic data such as amount of discharge, charge/discharge
efficiency. ROM also stores algorithm for SOC if the SOC is calculated using the EMF.
RAM stores historic data such a no of charge/discharge cycle. Calibration is also
important for the calculation of the SOC when current integration is done, because
inaccuracy in current measurements accumulates over time and causes SOC Estimation
errors.

Fig 4: Breakdown of different stage of an SOC working

8
2.2.1 SOC Determination

We have defined the SOC for the battery but merely defining it is not enough, SOC of a
battery cannot be accurately calculated but approximate value’s of it can be calculated
using the following methods:

1) Discharge test:

The most dependable method of SOC evaluation is to conduct a complete discharge of


the battery cell to determine its remaining capacity under controlled conditions. This test
also frequently involves a consecutive recharge and is considered to be too time
consuming. It also leads to interrupting the system where the battery cell is installed.

2) Ampere hour counting:

Most common and widely used method for this is the ampere hour counting, in this
method the current into or from the battery is measured during the charging/discharging, if
the initial SOC is known to us, we can use the following equation to find the current SOC:
𝒕 𝒕
SOC = SOCO – 1/CQ( 𝟎
(𝑰 𝝉 − 𝑰p(𝝉))d𝝉 = SOCO – 1/CQ( 𝜼
𝟎 COULOMBIC
I (τ)dτ)

Where CQ is the rated capacity, I s the external circuit current, IP is the loss in the current
due to internal reactions and the heat generated inside the battery during the charge or
discharge process, ηCOULOUMBIC is the columbic efficiency of the cell, the following
methods have some drawbacks associated to it:

1. Initial SOCO of the battery should be known with high accuracy, the initial SOCO of
the battery is wrong, then the calculation of the present SOC would be incorrect.
2. Finding the value of the current that goes into the circuit (I) and the value of current
lost due to invariable reasons (Ip) is hard to determine.

To avoid the following drawbacks, SOCO of the battery can be set to zero, the battery
should be completely discharged before doing the experiment and calculations, constant
current losses can be assumed for every charge/discharge cycle so as to fix the value of
the columbic factor. For Example, a factor of 1.3 is assumed for the nickel cadmium
batter, a factor of 0.95-1.1 is assumed for the lead acid batteries.

9
3) Open circuit voltage measurement

Since the SOC in the lithium ion battery is directly related to the embedded active material
in it, Open circuit voltage is a perfect parameter for determination of SOC of the battery
after the battery gets sufficient time to reach the balance. Usually a linear relationship
exists between the OCV and the SOC of the battery, this isn’t true for all types of battery,
lead acid batteries shows linear relationship, but most of the lithium ion batteries does not
show a linear relationship, it majorly depends on the capacity and the material used in the
battery.

This is a rather precise way of calculating the SOC of the battery


but it has certain drawbacks, for most of the batteries it takes a lot of time for the voltage
to reach the equilibrium condition. For example, low temperature operated C/LiFePO4
takes about two hours to reach the stable state. For application the EV hybrid vehicles,
this method is only applicable when the cars are parked for a long period of time but has a
lot of application when it comes to energy storage integration with the solar/PV
technology.

Fig 5: Voltage v/s SOC during measurement for charge and discharge cycle

10
3. Commercial Viability: Techno-economic analysis for Li-ion with PV

Most of the countries and government all over the world are aiming to reduces the CO2
emission by the year 2030 by almost 50% percent of the levels in 2000. Cutting back on
energy is a possible solution for this but it hampers the economic growth of the country
and has severe negative impact for the government, renewable energy resources (RESS)
has been a promising way of reducing the carbon emission and fulfilling future supply of
sustainable energy production in the recent future with technologies like photovoltaics,
wind energy, hydro.

Today, the costs of best in class Li-ion batteries are following a strong reduction
in cost, $300/kW, as compared to the upfront cost of $1000/kWh 12 months prior. A 20%–
30% yearly cost reduction could bring conventional lithium ion batteries at a point where it
can be used by the masses for everyday use.

We use a multi-parameter economic model which allows profitability estimation for BESS
with sensitivity to both technical and economical parameters, such as battery end-of-life
criterion, battery ageing behavior, electricity prices and storage investment costs. Using
this model, we derive a clear picture of system profitability with dependence to all major
influencing parameters. Applying the baseline ageing characteristic and given the market
price trends, system profitability is expected to be reached in the very near future.
Evaluations depend on different scenarios of electricity price and economic input data,
battery size and storage replacement strategy. Furthermore, we also analyze the
particular operational wear of batteries together with its technical and economic
consequences. Finally, we provide and analyze ROI curves achieved for a residential
customer with a ‘solar-plus-battery’ system and the conditions needed to surpass the
break-even point in different scenarios.

The increasing contribution of PV to the global and regional power mix has caused a
number of fundamental challenges, which can largely be addressed by the addition of
energy storage.

• PV electricity is produced only during the day; energy is often needed during the
night. The ability to store energy during the day for use at night is beneficial.
• PV is an intermittent and unpredictable generation source. Storage allows
fluctuations in supply to be reduced.
• Off-grid PV is not connected to the grid, and therefore, the only way to use
electricity at night is through storage.

11
Fig 6: Economic and technical parameters at different levels

3.1 Methodology

We have developed a modelling tool, which allows an operation specific economic


analysis of battery storage systems. The model not only reflects a detailed battery internal
parameter evolution over time – namely state of charge (SOC) and ageing related state of
health (SOH) development – but also it allows for an annuity based revenue calculation
with all economic aspects of a PV-household application. We apply this model to show
different potential scenarios for business case evolvement of PV-storage systems in the
(Berlin, Germany) market and conclude which scenarios could economically promote
households to invest in energy storage systems.

3.1.1 Model Structure:

The system operation block replicates the PV-storage coupled system power flow based
on load and generation profiles considering system restrictions. It determines battery load
and reflects battery performance with dependence on the storage operation strategy, With
the battery load the particular degradation of capacity is calculated which alters the
systems performance and – after long term deterioration – may infer in replacement of the
battery to recover system performance.

The economic calculation block of the model is based on the residual load and
determines both revenue achieved and financial losses. Together with the costs of
investment, maintenance, and battery replacement, the overall evaluation parameters like
LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy and ROI are calculated. These financial key data can be
optimized by changing the system dimensions as well as the operation strategy.

12
3.1.2 Scenario

This in this case we assume a solar PV system integrated with a battery energy storage
system (BESS), which includes a customer with a PV system on rooftop for generating
electricity, a battery storage system which aims which stores the energy produces by the
PV, the aim of this model is to reduce the cost of utility bill for the customer by installing
battery storage kit which will be successful if the cost of saving on the bill will surpass the
initial investment over a certain period of time ( say 5 years). The aim of the kit is to
reduce the electricity from the grid and becoming self sustained on the energy produced
by PV and eventually becoming completely off from the grid over the period of time.

Fig 6: Scenario analysis of BESS integrated PV

3.1.3 Load profile

As per the generation profile, we use the data of the typical rooftop solar panels which is
acquired from study a rooftop solar panels system in Germany and recorded with one-
minute resolution. The degradation of PV (Usually 1% per year) is neglected which cause
small decrease in the power output of the panels. The economic power output the solar
panel was assumed to be 4.4kWp. On average the electricity consumption of an average
household was 4,400 kWh per year.

PARMATER NAME VALUE

Energy efficiency 95%


Self-discharge 6% EN/ Month
Calendar life 12-15 years
Cycle lifetime 4000-6000

13
INPUT VARIABLE VALUE

Electricity 4.400kWh/year
consumption
Photovoltaic peak 4.4kWp
power
Maximum Grid- 0.6*P PV peak=
Feed in 2.64kW
Battery Capacity 4.4kWh (SoH =100%)

Table 3 &4: Battery and PV parameters for setup

We consider a lithium-ion battery system by taking into account the cost and technical
data of a typical energy storage system, used in PV-household applications. The power
flow of the BESS considers system limits, such as maximum rated power and current
energy content which may result in reduced load or supply from the battery. The operation
strategy used in this study estimates a maximum possible self-consumption: The energy
storage will store all power produced by the PV system, which exceeds consumption. As
such, a larger battery capacity leads to higher rate of self-consumption.

Regarding the investment cost the battery capacity should be limited. Waffenschmidt [1]
proposes the sizing of 1:1 of storage capacity to PV peak power, which leads to the
battery capacity of 4.4 kWh used in this paper as baseline scenario. With this battery size
the storage has to achieve about 275 equivalent full cycles (EFC) in one year summing up
about 5500 EFC over the depreciation period of 20 years. Furthermore, the model
includes battery’s self-discharge behavior of 6 % per month related to the nominal storage
capacity EN[2] and energy efficiency of 95 % [2] shown in Table 2. For simplicity, we
model the PV- battery system coupling via a single power electronics device. The power-
dependent efficiency of the power electronics can be estimated using equation [3]:

Applying a parameter set of p = 0.0072 and k = 0.0345, the efficiency curve fits well to
measurements obtained on high efficiency inverters [5][6].

14
3.2 Battery Ageing

Two distinguished ageing situations are:

• Calendar life on storage (i.e. on rest)

• Cycle life while in-use (i.e. on cycling)

Battery ageing occurs during storage due to self-discharge and impedance rise. It affects
the calendar life of the battery. Ageing on storage mainly depends on storage time and
storage conditions like temperature and state of charge (SOC). The ageing process
during storage can be monitored by capacity fading, change in potential, internal
resistance rise with SOC fade [35,36]. Sometimes, controlled charging/discharging cycles
improve the capacity fade and recover a fraction of percentage faded capacity.

On the other hand, cycling process usually damages the materials’ reversibility, the
interaction between the electrolyte and active materials, that results in loss of cyclable Li-
ions. Throughout cycling, one can measure the capacity fade, impedance rise and over
potential that influence the charge/discharge curves.

In the figure shown, the degradation of the battery for PV household use shows the
decrease in battery SOH which cause the capacity to fade away, due to decreased
capacity the self consumption rate of the battery decreases which leads to low yield on
profits for the system. For comparison purpose low self consumption of PV-household
without the battery system is also shown in the figure, SOH van be defined as the
capacity fade for the battery over the initial capacity. An SOH of 0% percent shows that
the battery has zero capacity to store energy in it. Usually an SOH below 80% is
considered as the point of replacement of the battery for the system, SOH fall below 80%
needs replacement and further adds up the replacement cost, following are the two
factors which makes the needs for replacement if the SOH falls below 80 percent:

1.Strong increase of internal resistance and therefore decrease of battery efficiency

2.Strong decrease of usable battery capacity

15
Fig 7 – Development of battery SOH and PV-self consumption

3.2.1 Li-ion Used in Ageing

During the study, 3A h 18650-type cells were used, which were basically NCA types cell,
which were separated by a polyethylene separator, sandwiched between an aluminum
collector at the anode and a copper foil at the anode, all of which immersed in an
electrolyte solution, for which the manufacturer defined a charge /discharge rate of 1.2C
and 0.3C and an instantaneous charge/discharge rate of 5C and 1.5C respectively, at this
given standard range the internal resistance at 25C were 36mΩ.

3.2.2 Ageing Test

The ageing tests are divided into two groups: storage and cycling. Storage tests entailed
storing the cells at different SOC and temperature combinations. To adjust the SOC to the
required level, the cells were first discharged at a 1 C constant current discharge rate to a
cut-off voltage of 2.5 V using a commercial cell cycler (Bitrode MCV 16-100-5).
Subsequently, the cells were allowed to rest for 3 h before being fully recharged
according to the manufacturer’s recommended charge protocol of constant current charge
of 1 C until 4.2 V is measured and then a constant voltage of 4.2 V until the current fell
below 0.15 A. Following the completion of charge, the cells were again allowed to rest for
3 h prior to being discharged at 1 C constant current for 6 min s, 30 min or 48 min which
brought the cells to 90%, 50% or 20% SOC respectively. To control cell temperature, the
cells were placed in a Vötsch thermal chamber at either 10 °C, 25 °C or 45 °C. The nine
combinations of temperature and SOC were studied in this work, with three cells tested
per combination.

Cycling tests were all carried out at 25 °C with one of two depths of discharge 30% or
80% and one of three discharging rates 0.4 C, 0.8 C or 1.2 C. All cycling tests were
limited to a charging rate of 0.3 C for safety (i.e., to within manufacturers limit for
continuous charging). Cell cycling was achieved using a commercial cell cycler (Bitrode
MCV 16- 100-5) and the ambient temperature was controlled using an Espec thermal
chamber. Again, three cells are tested for each depth of discharge and discharging rate
combination.

16
3.2.3 Ageing Test Result

Fig 8- Decrease in cell capacity and increase in internal resistance (Top panel) and
cycling ageing test (Bottom panel)

Capacity loss (from an initial 3 A h at 25 °C and resistance rise (from an initial 36 mΩ at


25 °C and 50% SOC) for storage and cycling tests are presented in Fig. 4 for 550 days of
storage and 3800 A h of cycling. Results show that storing at progressively higher
temperatures cause higher capacity fade and resistance rise. Resistance rise was highest
for high SOC storage, although storing at 50% SOC was found to be better than at 20%.
Despite higher discharge rates and DOD(=ΔSOC) globally exhibiting more degradation,
the almost flat surfaces for cycle ageing capacity loss and resistance rise suggests that
capacity loss and resistance rise are indifferent to (or lacks strong correlation with) the
discharge current rate and DOD.

17
3.3 Calculation of economics

The major factor to determine the profitability of the system is determined by its ROI:

(ROI) = Return/Investment = Avoided cost with storage –Annual cost –Maintenance Cost

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Initial Investment + Storage Replacement

3.4 Assumptions and BESS Cost

Depending on the different economics and government policies, interest rates various to a
great extend for our assumption we have taken into account 4% interest rate with an
inflation rate of 2% which makes the net interest rate as 1.96. We take into account the
two scenarios:

a. Constant electricity price with increase due to inflation


b. An increase of the prices by extrapolation by seeing the historic data of 10 years.

Fig 9: Electricity price scenario

For case a, let the fixed price we have taken into account is say 30ct/kWh and for case b,
extrapolating the data for German household for year 2006-2016 the rate of increase per
year is 3.8 %. The tables for general economic parameter and battery economic
parameter are given as follows:

18
INPUT VARIABLE VALUE
Interest Rate 4% per year
Inflation 2% per year
Electricity Price 30 CT/KWh
Feed-In-Numeration 12.56 CT/KWh

Table 5: Economic Parameters

BATTERY DATA VALUE


Depreciation period 20 years
Installation rate 5% of the investment cost
Maintenance rate 1.5% of investment cost per year

Table 6: Battery Economic Parameter

3.5 Result and Analysis

The following figure now shows the ROI sensitivity to the storage cost and electricity
price, the figure shows the ROI graphs between 0% to 10%, the part on the left side of 0%
percent shows the profitability for it assuming storage and production prices. Taking the
current scenarios of the storage and electricity prices the ROI currently is -1.46%, if the
prices falls below 450 euro/KWh the overall investment will be profitable.

Fig 10: Sensitivity on ROI

Fig 6 shows the sensitivity of ROI with respect to the storage capacity installed, it
shows that 4.4kWp is the optimal storage capacity for the BESS, as we increase the

19
capacity of the battery the to 6.6kWp the benefits through high consumption rate
does not surpass the higher initial investment cost for the storage, for the batteries
with capacity below 4.4kWp yields a low profit because of very less self-
consumption rate. The storage capacity for our underlined case seems to be the best
as per the trends for the increase the storage and electricity tariff.

Fig 11: Storage Capacity sensitivity with ROI

In the fig 7, it can be seen the replacement of the battery at SOH= 80% (Remaining
Capacity has reached 80 percent of the rated capacity), then replacing the battery at
SOH=85% or even 90%.

Fig 12: SOH Sensitivity to ROI

20
21

You might also like