A review on capacity sizing and operation strategy of grid-connected photovoltaic battery systems

Due to the fluctuation and intermittency of distributed PV generation, battery energy storage is required with higher renewable installation towards carbon neutrality. Thus, the photovoltaic battery (PVB) system receives increasing attention. This study provides a critical review on PVB system design optimization, including system component sizing and strategy improvement studies, from mathematical modeling, evaluation system establishment to feasibility and optimization studies. Several PVB simulation software packages are compared and evaluated, and acknowledged system models are presented. The evaluation indicators are summarized from various aspects with cases of various evaluation systems combining different indicators or using the Pareto front for multi-criteria system designing. The PVB system feasibility study is analyzed from system configuration variation, critical technical and economic parameter analyses, rule-based operation strategies to future expectations like large-scale energy storage profitability, grid parity, and energy community trading platform. The targets, methods, tariff and time resolution influences, and PVB system capacity optimization design recommendations are critically discussed. The research directions for system operation development and future expectations are analyzed from system feasibility, flexibility to resilience. The co-planning of PVB system capacity and operation design optimization makes the problem complicated, leading to relatively short time resolution but more flexibility to system operation strategy. This study could provide guidance and references to distributed PVB system future design and optimization studies.