Power and Energy Capacity Requirements of
Storages Providing Frequency Control Reserves
Theodor Borsche, Andreas Ulbig, Michael Koller, Göran Andersson
Power Systems Laboratory, ETH Zürich
{borsche, ulbig, andersson}@eeh.ee.ethz.ch, michael.koller 1@alumni.ethz.ch
Abstract—Due to their fast response time and high ramp
rates, storage systems are capable of providing frequency control
reserves. However, the limit in energy capacity poses difficulties
as frequency control signals are not unbiased. We describe a
scheme to recharge or discharge the storage without impeding
the quality of the provided service, and formulate an analyzing
method to investigate the resulting size of the storage.
We show that even small storage sizes are sufficient to provide
continuous and reliable primary and secondary frequency control
reserves to the grid.
I. I NTRODUCTION
With the introduction of intermittent energy sources and
the advent of electric vehicles, much focus is given to stor-
age technologies. Currently, only pumped hydro storage is
used on a major scale, however pumped hydro is strongly
dependent on geographical features. Other technologies, such
as batteries [1], flywheels and electrothermal energy storage
(ETES, [2]) are independent of location and have rapid de-
ployment times. While costs for such systems are constantly
decreasing, they are not yet able to compete with pumped
hydro storage.
One possible business case for storage is provision of
ancillary services, for example frequency control [3], [4].
Batteries have also an added benefit of being able to react
very fast to frequency deviations. It is well known, that a faster
response reduces overall frequency deviation and consequently
reduces stress on the power system. It would therefore be in
the interest of the TSO to include fast reacting storage systems
in the primary frequency control scheme. In the course of this
paper we will discuss primary and secondary frequency control
in Europe, which is equivalent to spinning reserves and load
frequency control (LFC) or area generation control (AGC) in
other networks.
Ancillary services are not guaranteed to be zero-mean,
and losses are inherent to any storage system. This leads
to violations of the storage capacity constraints and thus to
an inability to provide the promised service to the grid. We
propose to enable storage systems to participate in ancillary
services by adjusting the operating point to allow for an
appropriate charging or discharging that keeps the state of
charge within acceptable levels. The adjustment of the working
point has to be considerably slower than the associated service.
The paper starts by giving an overview over the relevant
regulation in Section II, before the proposed recharge strategy
based on slow changes in setpoint is outlined in Section III. We
978-1-4799-1303-9/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE
then continue by defining the method used for analysing the
required energy capacity in Section IV and by giving results
in Section V.
II. R EGULATORY BACKGROUND
Traditionally, ancillary services are being supplied by power
plants (§ 4.4, 4.5 in [5]) and regulation of frequency control
reserves focuses on issues related to power plant operation.
However, when using storage systems to provide ancillary
services, new questions arise. In this paper, primary and
secondary control reserves are investigated. Their task is to
balance any power mismatch and resulting frequency deviation
and unscheduled exchanges in the system, but not to sustain
longer periods of energy mismatch. Payments for these fast
ancillary service are based on power provision and not on
energy delivery, while costs for storage systems arise mainly
from energy capacity. For an economical operation of a storage
within frequency control, it is essential to maximize the of-
fered control reserves per storage capacity. Tertiary frequency
control is neglected, as the aim of tertiary control is to provide
energy to the system – something which is hard for a storage
device with limited energy capacity.
A. Primary frequency control reserves
Primary control in ENTSO-E describes the first tier of
frequency control. Participating units are responding in a
proportional manner to deviations from nominal frequency,
stabilizing the frequency after a mismatch in production and
consumption. Full activation is at 200 mHz and after a maxi-
mum of 30 s. There also is a dead band of no activation for
deviations less than 10 mHz [6]. The tendering period is one
week, and in the ENTSO-E network currently 3000 MW of
primary reserves are contracted. There are some conflicting
statements about the energy capacity of a unit participating
in primary control. In the following we will discuss the main
aspects.
a) Power-to-Energy ratio: The Swiss TSO requires in
its contracts, that the units must have an availability of 100 %
[7], which would mean basically infinite energy capacity . On
the other hand, the ENTSO-E operating handbook specifies,
that a unit has to be able to sustain at least 15 minutes of full
activation [6], and has to be able to do so again after frequency
has been restored.
 150
η2 = 1
2 0.4
η = 0.90
100
Energy capacity
η2 = 0.81
[MWh/MW]
η2 = 0.64
50
0
−50
Jan FebMar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct NovDec
time
Fig. 1: SoC evolution after following primary control for one
year
b) Operating point: German TSO’s explicitly allow the
co-use of a plant for primary control and other services such
as load-following and secondary control (§3.2.9 in [8]). One
might now be tempted to claim that the plant was following
a load with opposite behavior as the primary control signal.
Thus the two control actions would cancel out and the plant
could produce a flat output. Obviously, this is a misuse of
the regulation. While no detailed specifications for adjusting
the operating point of a unit taking part in primary control are
provided, framework agreements for secondary control provide
rules on this. Usually, there are two options. Either a change
of working point at each full fifteen minutes, or with a five
minute notice to the TSO (cf. [9], §3.2.3).
B. Secondary frequency control reserves
The amount of secondary control reserves and minimum
requirements are set by ENTSO-E, but the implementation
is organized and regulated by each control area indepen-
dently. This leads to varying definitions even within Europe.
As Switzerland utilizes mainly fast hydro power plants, the
requirements for response time and ramp rates are far stricter
than in Germany, which relies heavily on rather slow thermal
power plants. There are attempts to align regulation to make
trading in secondary control reserves between control zones
possible. Table I gives an overview over secondary control in
Germany and Switzerland.
TABLE I: Comparison of regulatory framework for secondary
control reserves in Switzerland and Germany
Germany Switzerland
Full activation < 5 min 1 < 140 s
PN 2 PN
Ramp 2% · 0.5 % ·
min s minutes is shown in Figure 2. Assuming that the control signal
1 Step-response, including ramp
2 PN : nominal power
III. A NCILLARY SERVICES WITH LIMITED CAPACITY
STORAGE
While primary and secondary control reserves are usually
assumed to be utilized with no bias, this is not at all guar-
anteed. Ancillary services are designed to clear a reference
0.6
P
AS
P
ext
P
0.2 WP
P/PAS
0
−0.2
−0.4
−0.6
0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120
time [min]
Fig. 2: Typical behaviour of storage system with setpoint
adjustment. The response to the primary control signal is
clearly visible, the working point changes comparably slow
incident, which is usually the failure of the largest generator
in the interconnected network. In such a case primary control
would need to provide control power for up to 15 minutes
until secondary control takes over. A storage participating in
primary reserves would need to have a storage capacity of
30 min in order to be able to provide 15 min in either up or
down direction. However, prolonged periods with no change of
sign and covering an energy content bigger than the reference
incident are observed in historic time series. Such signals lead
to a continued charging or discharging of the storage system,
eventually violating the capacity constraints.
While a statistical analysis proofs the near-normal distribu-
tion of frequency deviations, there is a small bias of 1.5 %,
which leads to the substantial cumulative energy shown in
Figure 1. While energy capacity is a design parameter of many
storage technologies, it is associated with high costs. In the
case of Li-ion batteries, it is even the dominating cost factor.
Increasing storage capacity to accommodate biased signals is
therefore not an economically viable option.
In [3], it was proposed to use the dead band of primary
control for adjusting the state of charge. Furthermore, using
resistors for down control (reduced production/ increased con-
sumption) was investigated. However, former adds only some
flexibility without actually solving the cause for imbalances,
latter is only a unidirectional solution that wastes substantial
amounts of energy.
Instead, by adjusting the setpoint of the storage system,
the SoC can be kept within defined capacity bounds. We
propose using an average over the previous usage to force
the control signal to be zero-mean. A typical 2-hour period
of primary control with averaging and delay time of both 15
is bounded, this leads to a bounded SoC. Furthermore, with
bounded input the averaging period defines a maximum ramp
rate which can be chosen to be slow enough as not to interfere
with the offered service. Additionally, a delay can be added
to give next tier ancillary services enough time to relieve the
current tier service. This leads to new questions:
a) Setpoint adjustment: There are several options to
contract the energy needed for adjusting the setpoint: 1)
 Storage parameters
- efficiency
- self-discharge
Historic time series
E / PAS ratio
of ancillary Storage System
Simulation P / PAS ratio
sercvice signal
operating point adjustment
- delay
- ramp rates
Fig. 3: Analysis method: historic times series and parameters
of the storage and setpoint adjustment are the inputs
intraday markets, 2) bilateral agreements, 3) pooling with a
power plant or 4) consumption of balancing energy. Intraday
markets and bilateral agreements are cheaper than balancing
energy, but suffer from a longer time until delivery and may be
fixed to 15 minute or hourly intervals, hence time granularity
may not be sufficiently fine. Balancing energy is expensive but
immediately available. To still provide the desired service to
the grid, setpoint adjustments have to be made with a slower
time scale and ramp rate than the service provided by the unit
(cf. Section II).
b) System stability: System stability is paramount and
may not be impeded in any way. This is guaranteed, as long
as 1) the energy content of the storage is capable of clearing
the reference incident as defined in the respective ancillary
service regulation, 2) the amount of the next tier ancillary
service is increased in such a way as to cancel out the setpoint
adjustment. Also, the power capacity of the storage device
must be able to provide the full ancillary service power at any
time. This means, the power capacity has to be at least the
sum of offered reserves and maximum set point adjustment.
c) Cost: The operating expenses will increase, as the
energy associated with adjusting the energy setpoint has to be
paid. Further investigation in economical optimal control have
to made, which may also take into account the capital expense
for power and energy capacity, as well as the degradation of
the storage system, e.g. battery wear due to utilization pattern
[10].
IV. A NALYSIS METHOD
As described in the previous section, we aim at overcoming
the limited energy capacity of a storage system by adjusting
the operating point in such a way that a true zero-mean
signal is achieved. SoC evolution also depends on some
storage system specific parameters, such as efficiency and
self-discharge, and on the parameters of the operating point
adjustment, mainly delay and averaging period. An analysis
method was devised which provides both the power capacity
and energy capacity needed to provide some ancillary service.
As input, historic time series or artificial test signals can be
used and a parameter scan over the storage system and setpoint
adjustment parameters can be performed. Figure 3 shows the
basic setup.
The evolution of the SoC is modelled by
SoC(k + 1) = SoC(k)+

(ηPext (k) − Pξ )ΔT if Pext (k) ≥ 0 (1)
+
( η1 Pext (k) − Pξ )ΔT if Pext (k) < 0
Where ΔT is the time difference between k and k + 1,
Pext is the external power flowing into the storage and Pξ
describes the self-discharge and may depend on the SoC,
ambient temperature and other factors. Usually, Pξ > 0,
meaning a loss of charge, but it may also be negative, e. g.
natural inflows in a pumped hydro storage. η is the one-way
efficiency including all losses in the system, e. g. converter
losses and battery losses. Generally, η can be different for
charging and discharging and can depend on P , SoC, ambient
and internal temperature or basically any other parameter.
As the analysis would be very device dependent and quite
involved without adding much value to our statement, we
assume constant efficiency at all operating points. The loss
can be computed as

(1 − η)Pext (k) if Pext (k) ≥ 0
Ploss (k) = Pξ (k) + (2)
(1 − η1 )Pext (k) if Pext (k) < 0
The adjustment of the working point has to 1) cancel out
any imbalance in the ancillary service signal, 2) adjust for
losses in the storage system. We define PWP as the working
point of the storage, and PAS as the power requested by the
ancillary service signal. At time k, we can compute the offset,
which will be applied after a delay of d time steps
k
j=k−a (−PAS (j) + Ploss (j))
PWP (k + d) = (3)
a
Here, a is a parameter defining over what time period the
average should be taken.
Finally, the actual setpoint for power to be consumed by the
battery can be computed as the sum of the ancillary service
signal and the current working point
Pext (k) = PAS (k) + PWP (k) (4)
The resulting power to energy ratio is computed as the
difference between minimum and maximum state of charge
reached for a certain parameter set and time series. This can
be either expressed as power that can be offered per energy
MW
capacity with unit [ MW h ], or as the reciprocal thereof yielding
storage capacity expressed in time that the offered PAS can
be stored. We will mainly use latter notation. The required
power capacity is computed as P = PAS + max(|PWP |). We
will usually normalize this value with respect to PAS .
V. R ESULTS
To test the algorithm, different scenarios were investigated.
As input a step signal, as well as historic time series provided
by the Swiss TSO swissgrid were used. In all simulations,
an ideal storage with η = 1 is compared to a lithium-ion
battery system (η = 0.95), standard battery (η = 0.9) and
ETES (η = 0.8). Note that these efficiencies translate to a
 0.2
1
0

Energy capacity
[MWh/MW]
−0.2
0.5
PAS

−0.4 reference
2
−0.6 η =1
η2 = 0.90
0
−0.8 η2 = 0.81 60
2
−1 η = 0.64 60
45
0 15 30 45 60 15 15
5 15
time Averaging period Delay
[min] [min]
Fig. 4: Power production of storage system after negative step (a)
response
2
0
1.8

Power capacity
η2 = 1

[MW/MW]
2
η = 0.90 1.6
−7.5
η2 = 0.81
2 1.4
η = 0.64
[min]
SoC

−15 1.2

1
−22.5 60 60
45
15 5 15
15
Averaging period Delay
−30 [min] [min]
0 15 30 45 60
time (b)
Fig. 5: SoC evolution of storage system after negative step Fig. 6: Required energy (a) and power (b) capacity per offered
response MW of primary control as a function of the averaging period
and delay. η 2 = 0.90

round-trip efficiency η 2 of 1, 0.9, 0.81 and 0.64, respectively.

TABLE II: Required power capacity and energy capacity per
Furthermore, we neglect self-discharge as this is minimal
offered unit of primary control reserve
compared to other losses and can be easily accounted for by
a constant slow charging. a: 5 min, d: 5 min a: 15 min, d: 15 min a: 60 min, d: 60 min
η2
P/PAS E/PAS P/PAS E/PAS P/PAS E/PAS
A. Step response [h] [h] [h]
Figures 4 and 5 show the step response for a controller with 1 1.6733 0.1507 1.6161 0.3752 1.5272 0.9170
both 15 minute averaging period and 15 minute delay, and 0.90 1.6685 0.1511 1.6114 0.3809 1.5043 0.9054
0.81 1.6631 0.1514 1.6063 0.3868 1.4808 0.8939
systems with varying efficency. Specifically, Figure 4 shows 0.64 1.7466 0.1518 1.5942 0.3990 1.4311 0.8711
the power consumed by the storage system. As defined by
the delay, the storage provides fifteen minutes of full power
before bringing back the power output gradually to zero.
The overshoot is due to adjustments for the internal losses. a comparably small influence, while the delay strongly affects
The same can be observed in the SoC, which continuously the required capacity. Further results are displayed in Table II.
decreases until it is limited by the controller to 22.5 min · PAS In Section II it was argued that a power-to-energy ratio
of 2 or in other words a storage capacity of 30 minutes
B. Primary control time series is a minimum requirement for primary control, guaranteeing
For the delay we assume 1, 5, 15, 45 or 60 minutes, where 1 system stability in face of the reference incident. If a delay and
and 5 minutes would be energy supply from balancing energy, averaging period of 15 minutes is chosen, that capacity would
5 and 15 could be bilateral agreements or pooling with a power also be sufficient for the investigated historic time-series.
plant, and 45 or 60 minutes may be the delay of intraday Interesting enough, perfect efficiency would increase the re-
markets. The averaging period is chosen from 5, 15 or 60 quired energy capacity for certain cases. Generally, efficiency
minutes, correlating again to balancing, pooling or trading. has only a weak effect on the capacity.
As expected, in Figure 6a we see an increase in the required The maximum power required decreases somewhat with
size of storage with both an increase in delay and averaging increased averaging period, and increases slightly with delay
period. The increase is not linear, the difference between a time assuming there are losses in the system (cf. Figure 6b).
45 minute and 1 hour delay for example is quite small. It can For an ideal storage behaviour is similar, just that there is no
further be observed, that the length of the averaging period has dependency on the delay. These results are as expected.
 4
It would be quite expensive to provide this kind of storage
Energy capacity with lithium ion batteries. Other technologies such as the
[MWh/MW] 3 ETES, which have far lower round-trip efficiency but at the
2 same time lower cost per kW h of storage capacity, might be
1
more favorable for secondary control.
0 VI. C ONCLUSION
60
45 In this paper, we have shown a way to use storage systems
30 105
15 45 60 for the provision of ancillary services by adjusting the setpoint.
15 30
Averaging period Delay Furthermore, we introduced a way to analyse the required
[min] [min] storage size given historic time-series and parameters of the
(a) storage system itself.
We argued, why adjusting the setpoint would be acceptable
2 to the TSO and would still guarantee system stability, while
1.8 at the same time limiting the required energy capacity of
Power capacity

the storage. While regulation has to be clarified on the issue

[MW/MW]

1.6
of setpoint adjustment, we assume a storage capacity of
1.4 30 min for primary control and 2 h for secondary control to be
1.2 reasonable. With falling prices for storage systems this might
become an economically viable option in the future.
1
60 Future work may look at ways to improve the basic algo-
45 105
30 60 rithm presented here. Especially taking into account varying
15 15 30 45
Averaging period Delay prices for balancing energy or intraday trades at different times
[min] [min]
of the day may further improve the business case.
(b)
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Fig. 7: Required energy (a) and power (b) capacity per offered
MW of secondary control as a function of the averaging period The authors would like to thank Marc Moeckli and Bruno
and delay. η 2 = 0.90 Völlmin at EKZ for access to the Zurich 1 MW BESS,
Marc Scherer at swissgrid for insights on ancillary services
and Philipp Fortenbacher and Olivier Megél for the fruitful
TABLE III: Required power capacity and energy capacity per discussions about battery technology and applications.
offered unit of secondary control reserve
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