Numerical simulation analysis of the impact of photovoltaic systems and energy storage technologies on centralised generation: a case study for Australia

In response to climate change concerns, most of the industrialised countries have committed in recent years to increase their share of Renewable Energy Sources to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions. Therefore, the rapid deployment of small-scale photovoltaic (PV) systems, mainly in residential applications, is starting to represent a considerable portion of the available electrical power generation and, for this reason, the stochastic and intermittent nature of these systems are affecting the operation of centralised generation (CG) resources. Network operators are constantly changing their approach to both short-term and long-term forecasting activities due to the higher complexity of the scenario in which more and more stakeholders have active roles in the network. An increasing number of customers must be treated as prosumers and no longer only as consumers. In this context, storage technologies are considered the suitable solution. These can be necessary in order to solve and fill the problems of the renewable distributed sources are introducing in the management of the network infrastructure. The aim of this work was to create a model in order to evaluate the impact of power generation considering PV systems in Australia along with a model to simulate Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESSs) and Electric Vehicles future contributions using MATLAB. The methodology used to develop these models was based on statistical assumptions concerning the available details about PV systems installed and current storage technologies. It has been shown that in all the scenarios analysed, the future adoption of rooftop PV panels and impact on the CG is incredibly higher than the uptake of energy storage systems. Hence, the influence on the demand will be driven by the behaviour of the PV systems. Only in the hypothetical scenario in which the installations of BESSs will assume comparable levels of the PV systems, it will be possible to better manage the centralised resources.