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Abstract: The United States electric utility industry is transitioning from a one-way distribution grid to a new power grid that will accommodate bidirectional energy flow. Utility companies desire a solution for electric grid traffic congestion, which will work in synchrony with the industry’s transition towards future integrated distribution systems. This shift in the complexity of the supply side, combined with the unpredictable fluctuations in the demand side gives rise to the electric grid network congestion problem, resulting in unpredictable or planned outage.

In recent times, advent of mega size Lithium-Ion batteries has proven to be size and cost efficient to absorb and smoothen out such varying levels of demand on the supply side, thereby addressing the congestion problems effectively. However, the networks are diverse in size and complexity and for a given network, one needs to determine the optimal number and location of such battery storage farms within a network. This report explores how Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be used to effectively determine the optimal locations of the battery farms in solving the electric grid traffic congestion problem.

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