Storage for Grid Deferral: The Case of Israel

To meet its target of 30% renewable energy integration by 2030, Israel must considerably develop its transmission grid. One idea that may reduce the costs of grid development is to use energy storage for grid deferral, that is, to locally store and time shift energy that cannot be transmitted due to grid congestion. For Israel this function would be most beneficial at noon when the grid is expected to be most congested due to high shares of solar energy. To study this idea, in this paper we estimate the required storage capacity as a function of renewable energy generation and grid capacity in Israel, and use the results to calculate the current required storage costs, which is then compared to the expected costs of grid development. We also analyze the added value of storage for generation capacity replacement, and show the conditions under which value stacking can increase the attractiveness of storage for grid deferral. Two main findings are that the storage capacity needed to enable connection of additional PV plants to the existing grid grows non-linearly, and that the use of storage for grid deferral is limited to an addition of 170% over the current PV capacity.