Need for Reducing Grid Capacity Reduced
Context
AGISTIN’s concepts for how storage can be integrated with industrial grid users may reduce the need for grid connection capacity in the order of 20-30%, corresponding to 50-60 GW reduction across Europe. This impact is measured locally at the industrial grid user, but there are secondary reductions in the need for deep grid reinforcement that are difficult to quantify.
By avoiding the need for reinforcement, the possibility of delay is also avoided, with corresponding benefit in terms of CO2 emissions and learning rates for industrial decarbonisation. Widespread uptake of the AGISTIN project results improve capital and operational costs for transmission and distribution operators (TSOs and DSOs) while simultaneously reducing curtailment of renewables for grid stability related reasons.
This has knock on benefits for the target groups: grid users, grid operators, storage and renewable developers and providers, power electronics providers and society at large. More specifically, these impacts can materialise through two primary pathways:
- By using industrial grid users implementing AGISTIN project outcomes to economically provide advanced grid services, an increase in the instantaneous renewable penetration limit of 75% (net of DC imports and exports) to closer to 100% is possible. The impact of that change results in a reduction in renewables curtailment in a country like Ireland by 3% of total wind & solar production and costs related to curtailment by more than 75% (based on EU-SYSFLEX project results).
- Based on extrapolation of the same EU-SYSFLEX results, procurement of grid services from resources such as storage and AGI equipped industrial grid users reduces the cost of managing voltage constraints by more than 70% under high renewables scenarios. At a European level, this results in cost savings in excess of 1 €Bn per annum under high renewables cases.
