Abstract
Battery storage systems are attractive alternatives to conventional generators for frequency regulation due to their fast response time, high cycle efficiency, flexible scale, and decreasing cost. However, their implementation does not consistently reduce environmental impacts. To assess these impacts, we employed a life cycle assessment (LCA) framework. Our framework couples cradle-to-gate and end-of-life LCA data on lithium-ion batteries with a unit commitment and dispatch model. The model is run on a 9-bus power system with energy storage used for frequency regulation. The addition of energy storage changes generator commitment and dispatch, causing changes in the quantities of each fuel type consumed. This results in increased environmental impacts in most scenarios. The impacts caused by the changes in the power system operation (i.e., use-phase impacts) outweigh upstream and end-of-life impacts in the majority of scenarios analyzed with the magnitude most influenced by electricity mix and fuel price. Of parameters specific to the battery, round trip efficiency has the greatest effect.
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 10163-10174 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Environmental Science and Technology |
Volume | 52 |
Issue number | 17 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 4 Sep 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2018 American Chemical Society.
NREL Publication Number
- NREL/JA-5D00-72264
Keywords
- battery storage systems
- life cycle assessment
- lithium ion batteries