Payback period of energy storage peak-shaving project

How to evaluate environmental impacts in energy storage systems?

During the evaluation of environmental impacts, the initial step is to collect the life cycle inventory (LCI) of the energy storage options. Specifically, the LCIs for PHS and CAES are available in the supplementary materials (Tables S9–S10), whereas the LCIs for LIPB and VRFB systems were referenced in previous work .

How to evaluate the environmental performance of energy storage alternatives?

When assessing the environmental performance, the key technology parameters of the energy storage alternatives including lifecycles, round-trip efficiency and calendric lifetime, are characterized by the upper quartiles, median and lower quartile values, which are provided in Table 3 and Table S8.

Does LipB affect the environmental impact of energy storage technologies?

As a result, it does not alter the ranking of the overall environmental impact among the four energy storage technologies. In particular, for the considered indicators, the impact of LIPB was notably lower, accounting for approximately 70 % of PHS, 47 % of CAES, and 54 % of VRFB.

Which energy storage technology provides the greatest environmental benefits?

Among the studied energy storage technologies, the recycling process of VRFB provided the greatest environmental benefits because of its ability to recover a greater quantity of valuable heavy metals during recycling. This significantly highlights the importance of recycling in minimizing the environmental impacts of ESSs.