Investigation of energy storage systems, its advantage and requirement in various locations in Australia

Storage minimizes the intermittent nature of renewable sources. Solar and wind are the two fostered source of renewable energy. However, the availability of useful solar radiation and wind speed varies with geographical locations, and also the duration of this energy sources varies with seasonal variation. With the available vast open land and geographical position, Australia has great potential for both solar and wind energies. However, both these sources require energy buffering to support load demand to ensure required power quality. Electricity demand is increasing gradually, and also Australia has target to achieve 20% electricity from renewable sources by 2020. For effective utilization of solar and wind energy potential location of these sources needs to be identified, and effective size of storage needs to be estimated for best utilization according to the load demand. Therefore this paper investigated wind speed and solar radiation data of 210 locations in Australia, identified the potential locations, and estimated required storage in various potential locations to support residential load demand. Advantages of storage were analyzed in terms of loading on distribution transformer and storage support during energy fluctuation from renewable energy. Further analysis showed that storage greatly reduces greenhouse gas emission and reduces overall cost of energy by maximizing the use of solar and wind energies.