Sizing and grid impact of PV battery systems - a comparative analysis for Australia and Germany

As the business case for home-scale PV battery systems emerges in Australia and Germany, the impact of different pricing schemes and grid integration approaches on the sizing and operation of such systems and on distribution grids has to be evaluated. This paper proposes an integrated approach which first derives optimally configured PV and battery systems using a mixed integer linear program and subsequently assesses their impact on grid planning aspects such as peak feed-in and peak load for an Australian and a German case study. The results show that small scale PV battery systems will be an economically viable option in the near future in Australia. A reduction in peak load is achievable in the presented example as well. In Germany, stand-alone PV systems will provide the economically more favorable option under current battery prices. For lower battery prices a high increase in installation rates can be expected. Depending on the control strategy, battery systems are able to significantly reduce PV peaks in Germany. For distribution grid operators estimations on the average peak reduction per installed PV battery are presented.