Abstract Renewable energy (RE) is expected to be the major part of the future energy. Presently, the intermittence and fluctuation of RE lead to the limitation of its penetration. To solve this problem, energy storage device is in demand. In this paper, the energy storage strategy was designed to improve the RE penetration and dynamic operation stability in a distributed system coupling wind generators, internal combustion engine and RSOFC. By compromising the relative deviation of power supply and demand, RE penetration, system efficiency and capacity requirement, the strategy that no more than 36% of the maximum wind power output is directly supplied to users and the other is stored by the reversible solid oxide fuel cell is optimal for the distributed system. This strategy can better utilize the wind power and remarkable alleviate the wind curtailment problem.