A Combined Day-ahead and Real-time Scheduling Approach for Real and Reactive Power Dispatch of Battery Energy Storage

A combined day-ahead (look-ahead) and real-time optimization approach is proposed to schedule Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) real and reactive power dispatch. The look ahead scheduling agent maximizes profit and essentially performs the function of energy arbitrage by looking at forecasted prices, network constraints and BESS operating conditions to generate real power dispatch schedule. While this schedule is followed, the real time optimization agent computes an optimum reactive power set-point (for a particular objective function) using optimal power flow framework. The concepts are implemented by co-simulation of the legacy tools and demonstrated on a large real-world distribution system. In addition to the profits from energy arbitrage, optimum reactive power set point computation results in achieving desirable network attributes like flat voltage profiles and minimizing voltage deviations from desired value.