Abstract

The purpose of this research is to encourage policy makers to craft policies that support environmentally sound design practices while integrating bulk energy storage into the electricity grid. Bulk energy storage technology can regulate electricity coming into the grid from different energy sources. Grid flexibility is a powerful tool to empower the clean energy movement because it enables the integration of renewable energy into the electrical grid. However, storage technology has the potential to become another one of the many “tragedy of commons”, considering that there are no regulations forcing storage companies to pursue environmental-friendly operation. Bulk energy storage devices which earn income through arbitrage, have the potential to increase grid emissions. Both energy losses and the variety of energy grid resources, largely damper the environmental advantages of bulk energy storage devices. By using a linear programming formulation that considers both revenue and emissions, this thesis proposes operational solutions where bulk energy storage technologies can retain a high revenue while simultaneously reducing their emissions from the current eGRID sub-regions. These results can be achieved by explicitly demanding small inexpensive changes in the operation of the system. Usually, only a few companies will follow sustainable practices by themselves. Therefore, a variety of policy implementations are suggested to support environmentally sound design principals for bulk energy storage technology.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Energy storage--Equipment and supplies--Environmental aspects; Energy storage--Equipment and supplies--Economic aspects; Energy storage--Government policy

Publication Date

6-5-2017

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Science, Technology and Public Policy (MS)

Department, Program, or Center

Public Policy (CLA)

Advisor

Eric Hittinger

Advisor/Committee Member

Margaret Bailey

Advisor/Committee Member

Thomas Trabold

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

Plan Codes

STPP-MS

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