Assessing the benefits of net metering with residential battery storage

We propose a linear programming (LP)-based algorithm to schedule battery storage co-located with residential solar photovoltaics (PV), when excess generation is compensated via net metering. While the objective of this LP-based approach is to maximize the operational savings that accrue to customers, an undesirable consequence to the utility is reverse power flow during the peak pricing period. We show that it is possible to balance the objective of the utility in limiting reverse power flow with the customer objective of increasing operational savings, in the context of net metering, using a quadratic programming (QP)-based algorithm for battery scheduling. Both the LP-based and QP-based scheduling algorithms are applied to measured load and generation data from 145 residential customers located in an Australian distribution network.