Europe needs flexibility to deal with fluctuating wind and solar power supply. Batteries can be an important part of such a system. They are especially good at providing or absorbing power on short notice and over a limited period. Meanwhile, more and more batteries are installed in Europe: both in people´s homes and directly connected to the grid.
But how are battery operators able to turn a profit? And how does Europe depend on imports to install more of the power blocks? We addressed these questions in a webinar on April 18th.
Building and operating batteries profitably is gaining relevance quickly, as the large crowd of more than 250 participants testifies.
In the first part of the webinar, our colleague Ingvild Eng Holck explained how raw material prices drove the recent battery price jump. She also showed how one country dominates all steps of the current battery supply chain. China is in the lead both when it comes to battery raw material mining and processing, but also building components and finally stacking them together into batteries.
In the second part, Lukas Feldhaus from our Berlin office showed some ways in which batteries can operate profitably. Due to their short-term nature, batteries are well-suited for balancing services such as frequency response. But battery traders are constantly looking for other revenue sources. One market currently in focus is the intraday market, which provides good opportunities for algorithmic trading. Lukas also showed our newest tools to assess such future revenue potential on the intraday market.
Successful battery traders operate on different markets simultaneously, switching from one to another seamlessly to access the highest revenues. This is called value stacking.
If this sounds interesting to you, do have a look at selected slides from the webinar here.
Also do feel free to write us directly if you have any questions on how to price a battery and how batteries turn a profit on different markets.
