Optimal Energy Storage Solution to Reduce Electricity Bills for Class-A Customers in Ontario

This work presents a methodology based on Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESSs) to reduce the annual electricity cost of class-A customers in Ontario. The main objective is to size a BESS based on the customer load profile such that the maximum financial benefit is gained. Multiple revenue streams of the BESS operation are stacked to increase the benefit. Such streams include Global Adjustment (GA) cost as the biggest chunk of saving as well as energy price arbitrage, peak demand charge reduction, and enrollment in demand response programs.

As phase one in this work, energy arbitrage is inspected as one of the fundamental applications of BESS. The concept of energy arbitrage depends on purchasing energy during low-price hours and releasing it back during a high-priced time. The economic viability of energy arbitrage is examined in three different markets. It is emphasized through results that energy arbitrage using BESS makes economic sense in some markets only based on the range of daily price volatility and market regulations.