Maximizing self-consumption rates and power quality towards two-stage evaluation for solar energy and shared energy storage empowered microgrids

Substantial penetration levels of intermittent and fluctuated renewable energy resources like PV can cause overcapacity and other operational challenges in the grid. Therefore, energy market actors are directed to the feed-in limitations and restrict the installed capacity. Likewise, the declining incentives make energy storage central to increasing self-consumption. However, economic uncertainties arise concerns about the financial feasibility of energy storage investments. This study presents the techno-economic benefits in increasing PV self-consumption using shared energy storage for a prosumer community under various penetration rates. In the first stage, the optimal energy storage allocations were done using the proposed New Best Algorithm and genetic algorithm with Matlab. Then, the technical performance of the proposed method was simulated with year-long using PSS Sincal. In the second stage, the economic feasibility of increasing PV self-consumption using shared energy storage under various penetration rates is evaluated considering residual energy. The effects of incentives are examined in terms of economic indicators such as payback period, net present value, and internal rate of return. The incentives promote prosumers either with or without energy storage to increase self-consumption. As a result, shared energy storage increased self-consumption up to 11% within the prosumer community. Results and sensitivity analysis are given in detail. The proposed method provides significant economic benefits and improved power quality.