Energy Storage 101

Understand how electricity markets work and where the opportunities for battery storage come from. This session connects the physical electricity system to trading, balancing and congestion management, with a focus on Germany and comparisons with neighboring markets. Using market data and practical examples, we follow the trading timeline, show how the markets interact and examine what drives price spreads and balancing revenues.

Understand how a battery’s technical characteristics determine what it can earn. We connect key specifications to the requirements of different markets and walk through the main BESS components and how they interact. Lessons from existing projects show why actual performance often differs from supplier specifications and how this affects financial results, so participants can translate operational limitations into realistic business-case assumptions.

Explore how to combine trading and balancing opportunities while respecting the physical and contractual limits of the asset and its grid connection. We then extend the optimization to batteries sharing a connection with solar or wind, with a focus on the financial performance of the combined site, and connect operational strategy to commercial arrangements. Throughout the session, participants work through practical trading and dispatch decisions and discuss how the best strategy changes with prices, asset availability, and grid restrictions.