As Solar+Energy Storage Becomes a Leading Trend, what is the Best Configuration to Maximize Benefit?

Energy storage has become a hot topic in the energy field. More than 10 provinces, include Shandong, Shanxi, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Anhui, and Tibet, have released policies to encourage energy storage applications in solar stations and wind farms. Energy storage has been recognized as a key technology to solve the intermittency and volatility of renewable energy, promote renewable penetration, and reduce wind and solar curtailment.  Opportunities for energy storage increase as the era of solar price parity comes closer.

In order to generate sustainable profits, more effort is required in solar+energy storage technology integration, system efficiency, and security. Currently in China, system integrators for solar+energy storage project are still very rare. Combining solar generation with battery storage is not simply a matter of combining equipment, rather, the integrator must solve hardware and software interface compatibility problems between different devices. System security management is also a key issue. A complete system protection design is needed which can provide system monitoring, risk pre-alert, and provide relative protection.