Examining the Role and Value of Battery Storage in North Carolina: Meeting IPCC Emissions Targets Under Increasing Penetration Levels of Solar and Wind Generation Technologies in the Power Grid

In North Carolina, the primary electricity generation options to achieve a decarbonized electric grid are solar and wind electricity. In recent years, battery storage has become a clear contender to serve as a major support mechanism for these variable generation technologies in electric grids around the world. To explore the potential of battery storage in decarbonizing North Carolina’s electric grid, this paper quantifies the air pollution impacts and social costs integrating battery storage with varying penetration levels of intermittent solar and wind technologies in North Carolina. By applying a screening curve approach to predict the future of the North Carolina electric grid, this paper utilizes historical load profiles and modeled wind and solar outputs to project future integration of variable renewable electricity in North Carolina. Through a daily charging algorithm for battery storage, this paper models system-level emissions impacts and grid costs at high penetrations of wind and solar deployment. To investigate how a high-penetration renewable future for North Carolina will impact the operations of existing power plants, the model examines how different levels of storage deployment effects emissions. These deployment strategies are compared across various IPCC target scenarios to understand how higher penetrations of solar and wind would impact the emissions reduction benefits of energy storage. Impacts are compared across standards of total net demand, levelized cost of electricity per kilowatt-hour, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Additionally, this paper estimates the social value of storage as a method of reducing the social costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions in tandem with variable technologies.Bachelor of Scienc