Renewable Energy Based Grid Connected Battery Projects around the World—An Overview

The environmental pollution, as well as gradual depletion of mineral resources has encouraged the world to move into renewable energy sources for generation of electricity. At present, the cost of using renewable energy sources, such as sunshine and wind in electricity generation has significantly reduced. This has led to higher penetration of renewable energy into the grid. However, both wind and solar energy photovoltaics are unpredictable energies which reduce the reliability and resiliency of the grid. The integration of battery energy storage system in the grid is one of the proficient solutions to the problem. There are numerous grid connected renewable energy based battery projects that have been deployed in different countries around the world for research, development and commercial application. This review paper will discuss some of the projects based on the battery connected wind and solar energy power generation systems that can operate both in grid connected and grid independent modes. The projects discussed in this paper are selected based on the availability of information. The battery energy storage system (BESS) incorporated in each of the project is found to increase the stability and performance of the grid by addressing the mismatch between power generation and the load of the grid created due to intermittent nature of renewable energy sources.