Power grids across the world are undergoing remarkable changes in recent times fueled by the extensive integration of renewable energy resources (RERs). While it has been well established that RERs help to alleviate environmental concerns, the high penetration of these resources poses some serious challenges to the reliability and stability of the power grid due to their intermittent nature and low-inertia characteristics. Energy storage systems (ESSs) can provide effective solutions to the aforementioned problems. These devices are well suited for providing multiple services to the power grid due to their flexibility in operation, high ramp rates, and decreasing costs. This work investigates the role of ESSs in alleviating the critical issues concerning the power grid in recent times and the economic viability of such solutions. First, a novel analytical approach is developed for sizing ESSs to maintain grid frequency stability by providing inertial support. This approach provides a solution to the problem of reduced inertia in a system with high penetration of RERs, which may lead to frequency stability issues or blackouts in more severe cases. A comprehensive investment planning framework for ESS projects is also developed, which can estimate the lifetime revenue of ESSs participating in market services while considering battery degradation. A new planning strategy is then presented, which brings together the technical and economic aspects of deploying ESSs for providing inertial support to the grid. This techno-economic framework is capable of optimally sizing ESSs for providing inertial support to the grid while minimizing the operational costs of the system by participating in electricity markets. Besides considering the stability issues of the modern power grid, the depleting reliability of the system due to high RER penetration is also considered in this work. A transmission planning approach is developed for this purpose, which can reduce the variability of wind power and enhance the reliability of wind-integrated systems by jointly utilizing ESSs and wind power aggregation.
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