The potential for application of energy storage capacity on electric utility systems in the United States-part I

This paper briefly describes the results of the first phase of the systems analysis part of a research project to assess energy storage systems suitable for use by electric utilities. U.S. electric utility systems load and generation data that were collected and analyzed in order to select a number of systems most representative of the electric utility industry are described. The representative systems in turn are used to determine the potential total amount and distribution of off-peak energy available on individual systems on an annual, seasonal, weekly and daily basis. The amount of off-peak energy is described as functions of annual hourly load shape, capacity level assumed available for producting off-peak energy, generator performance characteristics (forced and maintenance outages), and energy storage device round trip efficiency.