Distributed, controllable energy storage devices offer several benefits to electric power system operation. Three such benefits include reducing peak load, providing standby power, and enhancing power quality. These benefits, however, are only realized during peak load or during an outage, events that are infrequent. This paper presents a means of realizing additional benefits by taking advantage of the fluctuating costs of energy in competitive energy markets. An algorithm for optimal charge/discharge scheduling of Community Energy Storage (CES) devices as well as an analysis of several of the key drivers of the optimization are discussed. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.