Towards an objective method to compare energy storage technologies: development and validation of a model to determine the upper boundary of revenue available from electrical price arbitrage

This article proposes a methodology to calculate the upper boundary of the revenue available from the storage and time-shifting of electrical energy. The inputs to the mathematical model are a discrete time series of the market index prices over a particular period of interest, and also specific energy storage device parameters. By using a Monte Carlo based optimisation method, the upper boundary of the revenue from time-shifting energy is determined. The method is explained and validated by showing that it finds the optimum solution that is the upper boundary for time-shifting revenue for a variety of storage device characteristics.