Portugal, as well as a number of other European countries, presents a sharp increase in renewable sources integration, namely in power sources like wind, solar photovoltaic, waves, biomass and small hydro. It is expected that 45% of the Portuguese electricity production will be of renewable origin by 2010, including wind, responsible for 16% and hydropower, responsible for 23%. As all renewable technologies ultimately derive energy from natural sources that vary in their availability over different timescales, the integration of larger amounts of renewable sources will become an increasingly important issue for the balancing of power generation and demand. Energy storage systems emerge like a solution for power generation and demand unbalance problem, offering additional benefits in utility settings because it can decouple demand from supply, facilitating the penetration of renewable sources, and improving the flexibility, reliability, and efficiency of the electrical network. The main objective of this paper is to study the potential contribution of energy storage systems in power generation and demand balancing due to increasing integration of renewable sources in the Portuguese power system for the years 2010 and 2015 and to present the most promising technologies for energy storage.
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