The United Kingdom electricity market mechanism: A tool for a battery energy storage system optimal dispatching

In this paper, the role of a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) in the United Kingdom (UK) electricity market is investigated. Such device is selected since research works related to the topic demonstrate that BESSs help facing challenges caused by renewable energy sources increasing penetration in the power systems’ field. Indeed, in the next future, BESSs will assume a relevant role thanks to their fast response time. In the present paper, an optimization model is implemented to encode the UK market rules and output the optimal set of offers on day-ahead and intraday markets, dynamic frequency response services and imbalance settlement. The market rules are formalised in a mathematical model considering market temporal sequencing and BESS technical limitations. The tool also models the state of energy management, necessary since BESSs are energy limited assets. Objective function and constraints are linearized to define a Mixed Integer Linear Programming problem to reduce the computational burden and to integrate the model in the Energy Management System previously developed at University of Genoa. Specific tests are performed including and excluding ancillary services to evaluate the related advantages. The obtained outcomes reveal that ancillary services are the most convenient options within all the implemented scenarios.