With the rapid growth in distributed solar, residential energy storage systems are poised to become an increasingly important component of a robust, reliable, decarbonized electric grid. While multiple vendors have recently introduced consumer storage to the market, it is difficult to ascertain how will these products perform under real-world conditions to address the real-world challenges introduced by high penetration PV. Unlike other, more mature, grid-edge devices, there is no established methodology for characterizing the performance of residential energy storage.
Fraunhofer USA, together with the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy ISE in Freiburg, Germany, have developed a Residential Energy Storage System (RESS) Test Protocol that addresses the need for rigorous, independent testing and evaluation of residential energy storage systems. Leveraging Fraunhofer ISE’s extensive experience with the more-established energy storage market in Germany, our approach evaluates the performance of RESS’s across a range of duty cycles and test conditions that reflect real-world conditions. This testing can provide valuable insight to a wide array of stakeholders, such as utilities, vendors, and end-users.
