Economic Analysis

Storage Economics

Including energy storage technologies in any industrial site such as GSK has some positive effects. Firstly, the electricity imported from the grid is reduced. Secondly, by improving the autonomy, considerable expense could be saved by reducing the risk of external factors such as blackouts and rota-disconnections. However, there are also drawbacks to including storage technologies. Not only is the imported electricity reduced, but the exported electricity from surplus is also reduced. This, together with the initial capital cost of storage technologies, reduces the economic feasibility of such a project.

Import and Export Tariffs

For our analysis, we used import and export tariffs of 8.2 and 5.4 p/kWh (given to us as typical values by our industrial contact) to assess the income associated. We used these values to compare the income gained from electricity surplus against the loss from deficit.

Net Import/Export Income

In practice, many different factors would need to be considered in the economic analysis, such as installation costs, maintenance costs etc. However, for this project we have decided to base the economic feasibility on the improvements of net import/export income brought about by including energy storage technologies.

Capital Costs

In order to assess the feasibility of different energy storage technologies we have used the following capital costs which have been estimated based on the literature. [1]

- Liquid Air Energy Storage = £ 660/kW

- Electrochemical batteries = £ 400/kW

- Flow batteries = £ 1000/kW