Demonstration of Community Energy Storage fleet for load leveling, reactive power compensation, and reliability improvement

A single Community Energy Storage (CES) Unit consists of a battery, power conversion system, and control system integrated in a small enclosure typically located adjacent to a distribution transformer serving a small number of customers. By placing distributed energy storage in close proximity to customers, the CES unit provides immediate, automatic power restoration in the event of an outage. A Distributed Energy Management (DEM) controller can manage a fleet of hundreds of CES units to simultaneously perform a variety of functions, including peak shaving, load leveling, renewable generation integration, reactive power compensation, voltage optimization, and reliability improvement. This paper discusses the implementation of CES at American Electric Power (AEP) as a part of the AEP Ohio gridSMART^® Demonstration Project. The AEP CES system will consist of one DEM controller at a 138 - 13.2 kV distribution station and an 80 member fleet of 25 kW, 25 kWh CES Units, totaling 2 MW on a single 13.2 kV distribution feeder. This fleet will perform load leveling, reactive power compensation, and reliability enhancement through islanding. Practical aspects of CES unit site selection are discussed along with the extensive efforts to actively inform and involve customers in the project. The DEM controller is interfaced to a Distribution Management System and required careful consideration to set up and test for the desired operations. Strong cooperation was required between the supplier and utility in order to achieve successful implementation of this first-of-its-kind project.