  Utilizing energy storage solutions to reduce the need for traditional
transmission investments has been recognized by system planners and supported
by federal policies in recent years. This work demonstrates the need for
detailed reliability assessment for quantitative comparison of the reliability
benefits of energy storage and traditional transmission investments. First, a
mixed-integer linear programming expansion planning model considering candidate
transmission lines and storage technologies is solved to find the least-cost
investment decisions. Next, operations under the resulting system configuration
are simulated in a probabilistic reliability assessment which accounts for
weather-dependent forced outages. The outcome of this work, when applied to
TPPs, is to further equalize the consideration of energy storage compared to
traditional transmission assets by capturing the value of storage for system
reliability.
