Techno-Economic and Deployment Analysis of Fossil Fuel-Based Power Generation with Integrated Energy Storage

Improving the flexibility of conventional power plants is a key challenge in transforming current energy system towards a high share of renewable energies in electricity generation. In the current energy system, mainly dispatchable coal- and gas-fired power plants compensate for fluctuating renewable power generation to ensure the stability and reliability of the electrical grid. Considering the expected capacity growth of renewable energy resources and corresponding reduction in the capacity of conventional power plants, the remaining dispatchable power plant fleet has to meet increasingly higher flexibility and reliability requirements. Energy storage integrated with a power plant partially decouples plant power output and boiler (steam generator) firing rate thus improving flexibility of the plant (lowering minimum load, providing peak power when needed, time-shifting peak power generation, and allowing load changes at constant or nearly constant firing rate), reducing cycling damage, reducing emissions, and improving plant economic performance. This project will analyze four energy storage technology options and six sub-options, and determine their impact on operation and economics of a representative (reference) coal-fired power plant. A coal-fired steam plant was selected for the analysis because it may provide the greatest benefits from the integration of energy storage and can be used as a foundation for other fossil fuel facilities. The savings due to the integrated energy storage resulting from improved operating efficiency, improved system reliability, reduced CO2 and other pollutant emissions, lower operating costs, more efficient plant participation in frequency control, and increased participation in the ancillary services market will be considered. As the penetration of renewables increase over the next decades, the efficient, flexible, and reliable operation of existing fossil power generating plants is critical for a smooth cost-effective decarbonization of the power generation sector.