Project Results

The purpose of this publication is to provide a collection, evaluation and update of information about the status and future potential of bulk energy storage technologies.

The report aims to provide policy makers, planners and developers with recommendations to further the sustainable development of bulk EST projects by eliminating or reducing adverse environmental effects. While sustainable development incorporates the three essential components of environment, social and economic considerations, this report focuses solely on the environmental aspects.

This report gives an overview on the contribution of bulk energy storage technologies (EST) in future European electricity systems facilitating large-scale renewable electricity expansion. Section 2 identifies the geographical allocation of future potentials of bulk EST and future large-scale wind deployment across Europe, whereas in Section 3 identified bulk EST potentials are matched with the spatial dispersion of future RES-E deployment and the existing thermal power plant-portfolio on region-level in Europe in order to provide estimates on the possible direct benefits and future contributions of bulk EST implementation to balance incumbent regional electricity systems.

This report provides an overview on the requirements / challenges of bulk EST in future energy systems with high penetration of RES-E generation. At first, possible future challenges of bulk EST due to high shares of variable RES-E generation are summarized. In the second part of the report, a summary of the requirements / needs of and opportunities for bulk EST in the different market segments of the electricity market on different time scales is provided. Additionally, examples on the price volatility and on the operation of the different markets are given. The third part of the report provides an overview of other technology options which increase the flexibility of future energy systems, since the storage capacities of bulk EST are limited and, therefore, only partly can contribute to balance the fluctuations caused by variable RES-E feed-in.

This report documents the environmental performance of existing PHES and CAES, identifying factors affecting their performance. The work is based on an extensive literature study and on six case studies that have been chosen from five of the six partner countries; Austria, Germany, Greece, Ireland and Spain. No case could be chosen from the sixth partner country, Denmark, as it does not have any PHES or CAES. Efforts have been made to include different types of PHES plants in order to examine the full scope of environmental performance issues affecting PHES, as different schemes may have different associated environmental issues.

This document provides and overview of the state-of-the-art and the expected future development of key technology and economic parameters of the two main bulk energy storage technologies Pumped Hydro Energy Storage and Compressed Air Energy Storage. A brief introduction into typical applications of these bulk energy storage technologies in the electricity market is given.