Electricity price arbitrage in utility-scale PV-plus-battery systems

Abstract

In this paper, we use MHOGA software for the optimization of an AC-coupled utility-scale PV-plus-battery system. Batteries are used for price arbitrage, being charged with the photovoltaic (PV) generation during hours of low electricity price and discharged during hours of high price. The correct estimation of the battery lifetime has great importance in the calculation of the net present value, to do this advanced models for estimating the Li-ion battery lifetime (considering cycle and calendar ageing) are used. With present components costs, considering the Spanish SPOT price of 2021 with an expected increase of 1% annual, the AC coupled utility-scale PV-plusbattery isn’t economically viable comparing to the PV-only system. If electricity hourly price was multiplied by two, in certain cases adding battery to the PV system would be profitable.