Energy storage to solve the diurnal, weekly, and seasonal mismatch and achieve zero-carbon electricity consumption in buildings

The cooperation of renewable energy and electrical energy storage can effectively achieve zero-carbon electricity consumption in buildings. This paper proposes a method to evaluate the mismatch between electricity consumption and renewable generation at different timescales and calculate energy storage requirements to achieve zero carbon. All five types of buildings analyzed in this paper have 30–40% of their electricity demand that cannot be fulfilled by real-time renewable generation. Moreover, the impact of energy storage on the mismatch is examined in terms of three factors: storage capacity, power rating, and storage duration. Despite that diurnal mismatch accounts for more than half of the annual mismatch, it is relatively manageable through energy storage. In contrast, the seasonal mismatch is a much thornier issue, even if it is the least component. Although buildings have comparable proportions of unsatisfied demand, the storage capacity requirement varies widely (350–800 times average hourly electricity consumption). This paper provides various implications. First, it is critical to persistently develop medium- and long-duration electrical storage technologies (appropriate storage duration is 37–185 h), such as large-scale compressed air or pumped hydroelectricity. Second, the adoption of nearly zero-carbon electricity can save most investment in electrical energy storage because of the diminishing marginal benefit. Third, compared with isolated buildings, cooperation of buildings significantly saves storage capacity due to their complementary electricity consumption.