Heterogeneous changes in electricity consumption patterns of residential distributed solar consumers due to battery storage adoption

Yueming Lucy Qiu; Bo Xing; Anand Patwardhan; Nathan Hultman; Huiming Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104352

Heterogeneous changes in electricity consumption patterns of residential distributed solar consumers due to battery storage adoption

iScience. 2022 May 4;25(6):104352. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104352. eCollection 2022 Jun 17.

Authors

Yueming Lucy Qiu¹, Bo Xing², Anand Patwardhan¹, Nathan Hultman¹, Huiming Zhang³

Affiliations

¹ School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
² Department of Forecasting, Research & Economic Development, Salt River Project, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA.
³ China Institute of Manufacturing Development, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province 210044, China.

Abstract

This study provides an empirical assessment of how adopting battery storage units can change the electricity consumption patterns of PV consumers using individual-consumer-level hourly smart meter data in Arizona, United States. We find that on average after adding batteries, PV consumers use more solar electricity to power their houses and send less solar electricity back to the grid. In addition, adding battery storage reduces electricity needed from the grid during system peak hours, helping utilities better flatten the load curves. Most importantly, we find a large degree of heterogeneity in the changes in electricity consumption patterns due to adopting battery storage that are not consistent with engineering or economic principles such as those not maximizing consumers' economic benefits. Such heterogeneous changes imply that utilities and policymakers need to further study the underlying behavioral reasons in order to maximize the social benefits of battery storage and PV co-adoption.

Keywords: Electrical system; energy Modeling; energy management; energy policy; energy storage; energy systems.