Influence of the Intraday Electricity Market Structure on the Degradation of Li-Ion Batteries Used to Firm Photovoltaic Production

This article considers the introduction of Li-ion batteries in photovoltaic power plants to firm their energy production and analyzes the dependence of their degradation on the structure of the electricity market where the power production is traded. The operation of the batteries is decided as a result of successive optimization problems that benefit from the use of deep-learning-based irradiance forecasting tools with low prediction error, which allows the batteries to keep a small size. In addition, state-of-the-art battery aging models are handled to derive a realistic lifetime prognosis. The simulation results obtained by using real data from three European locations, which have different irradiance patterns and market structures, show how the proposed control strategy makes it possible to decouple the saturation rate of the batteries from the climatic conditions of the plant location. Furthermore, regarding the market structure, the results show that the shorter the energy block and the closer the lead time, the lower is the degradation of the batteries.