Data for PhD thesis: “Impacts of Short-duration batteries on Great Britain’s electrical power system an networks”

This dataset accompanies the above PhD thesis, and provide fuller numerical information to material which is presented in the thesis and its annexes. The aim of the thesis was to further understanding of the possible and likely effects that a roll-out of batteries, and potentially other storage technologies, could have on Great Britain’s electricity networks. The research concentrates on possible impacts of batteries located in Scotland.

Datasets contain source material and details of battery simulation outputs, which would allow an interested reader to repeat or check the research described, or to build on these. All data were either collected from publicly available sources, or created in this research.

The data are arranged in sub-folders according to the chapter of the thesis which references them. The subfolders contain readme text files with further information about the files therein.

Most of these data are numerical information – in Excel or csv format. Some files with explanatory information are in Word or pdf format. A small number of python scripts are included, which require installation of Python to read. Some excel sheets present graphs which are outputs from python scripts.

Chapter 3 describes the state of battery deployment in Great Britain at time of writing, and explores revenues a battery could gain through a variety of activities (other than wholesale trades). This chapter folder contains data downloaded from public sources, and in some cases modified / combined / synthesised, to extract or prepare information regarding potential revenues.

Chapter 4 explores the revenues a battery could gain if it engaged in wholesale trading activity during 2022. The “Price data” subfolder lists electricity wholesale price data (day-ahead prices) for three five-week periods of study during 2022. These data were viewed on the trading platform’s website and manually transcribed, and thus they may contain transcription errors. Other pricing data for other years, and from the Irish system, are included for reference.
A battery simulation script was created (not included) and run using day-ahead price data. The “model outputs” folder lists simulated battery timeseries for some of the most attractive simulations (from a battery owner’s perspective), and the summary data from all simulations run, including overall net revenues and energy transfers from the whole 5-week run.

Chapter 5 explores the effects of batteries on transmission network.
The datasets include timeseries of Scottish and GB windfarm availability (“Final Physical Notifications”) and curtailment during 2022. They also contains data from the Electricity System Operator – timeseries of system demand data during 3 five-week case study periods during 2022. The research combines the windfarm output/ availability / curtailment data with battery simulation outputs.

Chapter 6 explores effects of batteries on distribution networks, using six case study locations in southern Scotland. Data include descriptions of the circuits studied and their connected generation assets, timeseries data for demands on the circuits, timeseries of windfarms and proxy windfarms availabilities (outputs / Final Physical Notifications) used in the studies, combinations of these data, and the simulated battery timeseries data selected for use in this part of the study.

Chapters 7 and 8 build on Chapter 6, using the same case studies, but exploring scenarios of curtailment of battery activity at times of network congestion. Chapter 7 contains information on battery sizing, scenarios of network outage, outputs of battery simulations with network constraints at each location, and impacts on revenues. Chapter 8 compares projected costs of battery curtailment with projected costs of network reinforcement. The datasets here contains outputs of battery simulations, namely battery revenue impacts from network constraints, in scenarios of “build more network” and “don’t build more network”, considering present and all future battery curtailment costs for the projects’ lifetimes. Some information is also presented in thesis annexes, but here is available in Excel format for easier use.