Energy storage arbitrage works in a similar way - electricity is stored when the price of electricity is cheap and dispatched when electricity is expensive. Energy storage projects earn revenue from the delta between the price at which power is stored and then sold into the market when the electricity is dispatched.
Arbitrage revenue and storage technology costs for various loan periods as a function of storage capacity for (a) Li-ion batteries, (b) Compressed Air Energy Storage, and (c) Pumped Hydro Storage. Fig. 11 c shows the current cost of PHS per day and the arbitrage revenue with round trip efficiency of 80%.
Price differences due to demand variations enable arbitrage by energy storage. Maximum daily revenue through arbitrage varies with roundtrip efficiency. Revenue of arbitrage is compared to cost of energy for various storage technologies. Breakeven cost of storage is firstly calculated with different loan periods.
The arbitrage performance of PHS and CAES has also been evaluated in five different European electricity markets and the results indicate that arbitrage can compensate for the energy losses introduced by energy storage (Zafirakis et al., 2016).
We use a portfolio of energy trade strategies to determine the value of arbitrage for pumped hydro and compressed air energy storage across European markets. Our results demonstrate that arbitrage opportunities exist in less integrated markets, characterised by significant reliance on energy imports and lower level of market competitiveness.
The concept of battery storage arbitrage is simple. Let’s use our cell phone as an analogy. We charge our cell phones overnight to then use our phones the next day. Similarly, battery energy storage systems store electricity from the market to use later when the electricity is most needed.