Energy storage is essential for the creation of the Smart Grid [1,2]. If storage devices were used to supply energy at peak electricity requirements (typically in the morning and evening), it should be possible to lower peak demand. As a consequence, fewer carbon-intensive and expensive “peaking plant” generators would be required, thus reducing both energy cost and carbon emissions [1]. Furthermore, storage devices could be used to compensate for the variability of typical renewable electricity generation (e.g., wind, wave, solar), thus making the integration of such generation facilities into the existing grid more viable in practice [2].
[1] P. Vytelingum, et al. Agent-based Micro-Storage Management for the Smart Grid, Proc. of 9th Int. Conf. on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2010), van der Hoek, Kaminka, Lespérance, Luck and Sen (eds.), May, 10–14, 2010, Toronto,Canada.
[2] D. MacKay. Sustainable energy: without the hot air. UIT, Cambridge, 2009.