A New Paradigm Based on Battery Transportation and Logistics to Maximize the Wind and Solar Renewable Penetration – Technical Aspect

Abstract

Concerns about the environmental degradation and global warming have placed greater importance to the development and application of renewable energy in recent years. Stand by energy source side, wind and solar farms have been continuously integrated into the power grids all over the world. Meanwhile on the end user side, not only EV and PHEV have been gaining market share in the automobile industry, but also the battery backup systems for home or industry have been introduced into public view. However, the randomness and intermittency of the renewable energy as well as the lack of transmission capability result in significant amount of wind and solar power curtailed. Besides, long charging time of batteries also hinders consumers’ willingness to adapt the EV or PHEV over the conventional vehicles. More importantly, the current EV or PHEV practice did not resolve the fundamental goal of reducing the greenhouse gas. At the best, it relocates the pollution caused by car in the cities to the pollution caused by the fossil fuel power plants in the rural area. In this study, instead of investing money in Energy Storage Systems (ESS) used as a fixed facility for storing the renewable energy and smoothing out the power fluctuation, a novel approach of ESS utilization combined with logistics in order to maximize the wind and solar penetration is proposed. This approach will also fundamentally solve the issues associated with the EV and PHEV which are mentioned above. The primary technical feasibility of the proposed method is discussed and analyzed with real data. The conclusion indicates that the proposed method is technically feasible and its prospect is quite promising via corresponding technology developed.