Open Energi - a review of the 8th Energy Storage Summit

Open Energi’s David Maclean David Teare and Jonathan Bosch attended #EnergyStorageSummit 2023, the biggest ESS so far and 2x oversubscribed! In addition to the great networking opportunities, the interest and optimism for energy storage were outstanding. Listed below are some of the event’s key takeaways:

 Modo Energy can throw a party! In addition to that key skill, their flagging of battery availability and how crucial it is to have an innovative optimiser and trading expertise given the saturation of ancillary markets and the growing forecasted value within the wholesale market. Modo is not wrong, and it is why Open Energi’s automated asset optimisation integrated within #bp’s Trading & Shipping is best placed to capture optimal asset value for our customers. There seemed wide recognition that “optionality” is key for optimisers to best take advantage of the value streams going forward.

 As you know we like a good industry grumble! This year, and to no surprise, it was #grid connections! However, it was encouraging to hear of National Grid’s 5-point plan for dealing with the issue. Grid Availability (“uptime”)” is still a big issue in storage (a big factor impacting forecast returns) compared with historical generating technologies, the industry as a whole is down in the 80s (%) and should aim to be 97%+. Modo’s point about which grid load is calculated by DSOs and NG’s is well taken.

 #Colocation was also a trending topic and there is still plenty of work to be done. Maximising the value of renewables; ameliorating the cannibalisation of competing technologies.  Open Energi has battery co-location project experience (both solar and EV), in addition to the wider bp group knowledge that is available via Lightsource bp and bp pulse.

 Battery activity within the BM is ramping up – currently, 0.3% of dispatches are batteries, and this number could be much higher by the end of 2023 with new control room automation plans. We wonder what the commercial value will be by end of the year. We believe it will be a bigger part of the #trading stack for batteries.

It was a great event, with an enjoyable sense of excitement about this growing industry. If we didn’t get the opportunity to catch up during the ESS, please do feel free to get in touch here.