A Comprehensive Review of Co-Optimization Methods for the Strategic Placement of Energy Storage Systems

Energy storage systems play a pivotal role in the green energy transition by integrating renewable energy generation and balancing supply and demand in modern power systems. Placement decisions are strategic and interact with other decisions, such as sizing, scheduling, and technology selection. Some interrelationships are more significant than others, making it advantageous to optimize their decision variables simultaneously. This comprehensive review begins with mapping the decision variables that interact with placement. The practical objectives and considerations for co-optimization are then identified. The study continues by prioritizing the integration alternatives based on reviews and experts’ opinions. We found that improving investment costs and profit/revenue are central in the choice of co-optimization variables, followed by externalities, reliability, congestion, and renewable curtailment. Integrating planning decisions related to transmission capacity expansion, assignment of the established energy storage facilities to demand nodes, and controller settings with placement remains an understudied area. This review concludes with an actionable discussion for researchers and practical implications for practitioners. While results are discussed in exemplary situations with cold climates and a community-protective profile, the framework can be generalized to other geographies or mathematical optimization problems.