Short Term Regulation in Hydropower Plants using Batteries : A case study of hydropower pants in lower Oreälven river

Sammanfattning: Hydropower is one of the oldest renewable energy (RE) sources and constitutes a major share in the Swedish electricity mix. Though hydropower is renewable, there exist some issues pertaining to the local aquatic conditions. With more environmental laws being implemented, regulating the use and management of water is jeopardizing the flexibility of hydropower plants. The decided national plan for new environmental conditions in Sweden is expected to start being implemented in 2025 and more restrictions are expected. Analysing a battery energy storage system's capabilities plants may improve flexibility in hydropower plant operation. This thesis is focused on the short-term regulation in lower Oreälven river where the hydropower plants Skattungbyn, Unnån and Hansjö are located. The combined hydropower plant and battery system is simulated being employed in the day-ahead market and a techno-economic optimization of the combined system is performed. The combined system's operation is modelled using Mixed Integer Linear Programming. The future electricity market analysis is modelled using Machine Learning techniques. Three different electricity market scenarios were developed based on different Swedish nuclear energy targets for 2040 to capture the future. The first scenario developed complies with the Swedish energy target of 100 % renewable production in 2040. The second scenario has still two nuclear power plants in operation by 2040 and the third scenario has the same nuclear capacity as of 2020. It is observed from the results that with the current battery costs (~3,6 Million SEK/MWh), the implementation of a battery system for the short term regulation of the combined battery/hydropower system is not profitable and the cost of battery needs to be less than 0,5 Million SEK/MWh to make it profitable. The thesis also discusses the possibility of utilizing batteries’ second life and the techno-economic analysis of their performance.