Market Value of Wind-Battery Hybrids in the Future European Power System

The current development of technological cost for wind and solar, coupled with the increasing ambitions towards a fully decarbonised energy system, puts Variable Renewable Energy Sources (VRES) at the centre of the future power system. This will bring along a deep transformation of the whole system, including the need for more flexibility both on the demand side and the supply side. Hybridisation of wind generators with storage has been one of the proposed solutions for a more flexible power supply and to sustain the revenues of wind generators, which could be jeopardised in a system with a very large wind power penetration and many hours with low prices. The key objective of this study is to understand to what extent can hybridising wind with battery storage increase the market value of wind in the European energy system and to analyse how this compares to the value obtained by other system options, such as deploying advanced wind turbines or standalone batteries. In order to do that, the Balmorel energy system model is used to simulate the development of the European energy system until 2050 under different future scenarios. Both capacity expansion optimisation and economic dispatch at an hourly level is simulated to reproduce the outcome of the day-ahead market.