Unintended Effects of Residential Energy Storage on Emissions from the Electric Power System.

In many jurisdictions, policy-makers are seeking to decentralize the electric power system while also promoting deep reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). We examine the potential roles for residential energy storage (RES), a technology thought to be at the epicenter of these twin revolutions. We model the impact of grid-connected RES operation on electricity costs and GHG emissions for households in 16 of the largest U.S. utility service territories under 3 plausible operational modes. Regardless of operation mode, RES mostly increases emissions when users seek to minimize their electricity cost. When operated with the goal of minimizing emissions, RES can reduce average household emissions by 2.2-6.4%, implying a cost equivalent of $180 to $5160 per metric ton of carbon dioxide avoided. While RES is costly compared with many other emission-control measures, tariffs that internalize the social cost of carbon would reduce emissions by 0.1-5.9% relative to cost-minimizing operation. Policy-makers should be careful about assuming that decentralization will clean the electric power system, especially if it proceeds without carbon-mindful tariff reforms.

[1]  C. Gellings Electric power research institute. , 1983, Environmental science & technology.

[2]  Simon Buckle,et al.  Mitigation of climate change , 2009, The Daunting Climate Change.

[3]  M Granger Morgan,et al.  Marginal emissions factors for the U.S. electricity system. , 2012, Environmental science & technology.

[4]  Paul Denholm,et al.  Decarbonizing the electric sector: Combining renewable and nuclear energy using thermal storage , 2012 .

[5]  Murray Thomson,et al.  Economic and environmental impact of lead-acid batteries in grid-connected domestic PV systems , 2013 .

[6]  J. Kleissl,et al.  Aggregate Ramp Rates of Distributed Photovoltaic Systems in San Diego County , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy.

[7]  Boqiang Lin,et al.  Reforming residential electricity tariff in China: Block tariffs pricing approach , 2013 .

[8]  Andreas Poullikkas,et al.  A comparative assessment of net metering and feed in tariff schemes for residential PV systems , 2013 .

[9]  R. Carson,et al.  The private and social economics of bulk electricity storage , 2013 .

[10]  E Langham,et al.  A level playing field for local energy. Issues paper prepared for the City of Sydney. , 2014 .

[11]  J. Apt,et al.  The effects of bulk electricity storage on the PJM market , 2014 .

[12]  Rui Melício,et al.  Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments , 2015 .

[13]  Eric S Hittinger,et al.  Bulk energy storage increases United States electricity system emissions. , 2015, Environmental science & technology.

[14]  Steven R. Weller,et al.  An optimization-based approach to scheduling residential battery storage with solar PV: Assessing customer benefit , 2015 .

[15]  D. P. Stone The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) , 2015 .

[16]  S. Solomon,et al.  Measuring a fair and ambitious climate agreement using cumulative emissions , 2015 .

[17]  Audun Botterud,et al.  The value of energy storage in decarbonizing the electricity sector , 2016 .

[18]  Yashen Lin,et al.  Emissions impacts of using energy storage for power system reserves , 2016 .

[19]  Claire Y. Barlow,et al.  Cost and carbon reductions from industrial demand-side management: Study of potential savings at a cement plant , 2017 .

[20]  Jay Apt,et al.  Emissions and Economics of Behind-the-Meter Electricity Storage. , 2017, Environmental science & technology.

[21]  O. Babacan,et al.  Distributed energy storage system scheduling considering tariff structure, energy arbitrage and solar PV penetration , 2017 .

[22]  Archie C. Chapman,et al.  Does battery storage lead to lower GHG emissions , 2017 .

[23]  M. Webber,et al.  The impacts of storing solar energy in the home to reduce reliance on the utility , 2017, Nature Energy.

[24]  Gregory A. Keoleian,et al.  Parameters driving environmental performance of energy storage systems across grid applications , 2017 .

[25]  Pedro J. Mago,et al.  Potential reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from the use of electric energy storage on a power generation unit/organic Rankine system , 2017 .

[26]  Shuba V. Raghavan,et al.  Scenarios to decarbonize residential water heating in California , 2017 .

[27]  Paulina Jaramillo,et al.  Carbon dioxide emissions effects of grid-scale electricity storage in a decarbonizing power system , 2018 .

[28]  Shady Attia,et al.  Net Zero Energy Buildings (Nzeb): Concepts, Frameworks and Roadmap for Project Analysis and Implementation , 2018 .

[29]  Eric Hittinger,et al.  Tradeoffs between revenue and emissions in energy storage operation , 2018 .

[30]  Chao Zhang,et al.  Energy storage system: Current studies on batteries and power condition system , 2018 .