Application of Battery Storage for Compensation of Forecast Errors of Wind Power Generation in 2050

Transmission system operators have to buy control power to cover deviations in energy production of wind power plants due to prediction errors. The risk of errors is immanent to any prediction. This leads to financial risks, especially for the unexpected large deviations. Therefore large-scale integration of wind power could oblige the system operator to allocate more spinning and supplemental energy reserve. This would cause more operation costs, in order to balance wind power prediction errors in a certain time period. Battery storage technology can be used to supply backup power for wind power plants. However, the high cost of battery storage systems (BESS) is the major drawback for their commercial applications. Gradually decreasing costs of batteries can bring BESS in a competitive positon for balancing wind prediction errors. By analyzing the application of BESS as means to balance prediction errors, the resulting cost associated with wind generation prediction errors in a liberalized electricity market in the year 2050 is assessed. The result shows, that BESS is an outstanding alternative for short-term balancing in order to reduce the cost of prediction uncertainties.