Economic Viability of Battery Storage Control Strategies With Photovoltaic Distributed Generation: A Premium Proposal Based on Technical Impacts

This paper presents a stochastic methodology to determine a premium designed to compensate prosumers for the technical benefits arising from the integration of battery energy storage systems (BESS) with photovoltaic distributed generation (PVDG). The motivation stems from the existing asymmetry among stakeholders: distribution utilities benefit technically and economically from BESS deployment, through peak demand reduction, lower technical losses, and mitigation of voltage violations, without bearing the investment burden. The proposed approach employs stochastic simulations to (i) quantify both the technical and financial impacts from the utility’s perspective, based on the integration of these technologies into real distribution feeders, and (ii) assess the economic feasibility of BESS adoption from the prosumer’s perspective. A univariate sensitivity analysis is conducted to identify the minimum financial incentive required to make such installations viable. The study explicitly considers regulatory and tariff structures that influence prosumer decision-making, focusing on two uncoordinated control strategies: self-consumption and price arbitrage. Results derived from 23 real low-voltage feeders demonstrate that, when the proposed premium is applied, BESS adoption becomes economically viable for prosumers while simultaneously enhancing grid performance. The findings highlight that compensating prosumers according to the monetized technical benefits of BESS integration effectively aligns private incentives with public grid improvements, thereby fostering sustainable energy transition policies without reliance on traditional subsidies.