Could your business benefit from battery storage?

For some time now, businesses that have the ability to be flexible in their energy usage have been able to access a number of benefits that simply aren’t available to those who cannot adjust their consumption in the same way. By finding flexibility, businesses can save money on their energy bills and even access new revenue streams – and with battery storage solutions constantly evolving, more businesses can seize these opportunities than ever before.

As a relatively new technology, many organisations are only just beginning to realise the potential advantages that commercial batteries can give their business. By enabling businesses to store energy whenever they want to and providing them with a supply of energy that’s separate to the grid, batteries can empower organisations to truly take control of how and when they use energy. This means that more businesses can find flexibility in their energy usage and access the many benefits flexible energy use can bring.

The business benefits of battery storage

Investing in battery storage could help your business to:

Save money

If you’re striving to cut your energy costs, there are a number of ways that battery storage can help you to do so. With battery storage on-site, you can store energy in your battery during periods of low demand on the grid, when energy prices are lower. Your business can then use the energy you have stored in the battery during peak demand periods, enabling you to avoid the higher energy prices associated with these periods.

For the next few years, for example, you could use a battery to support your Triad avoidance strategy by switching to stored energy during the times when Triads typically occur (4-7pm on weekdays). If you have an on-site generation asset, then installing battery storage alongside it could also help you to reduce your costs, as you can store any excess energy generated by your on-site asset. This way, you can get the maximum value from your generation asset and use less energy from the grid.

Access new revenue

Having a battery on-site can also help you to access new revenue streams through demand response services. National Grid runs a number of demand-side response schemes that incentivise businesses to turn their consumption up or down in order to help them to balance supply and demand on the grid. With battery storage, it should be much easier for your business to participate in these schemes, as you can simply switch to stored energy if asked to turn down, or provide battery energy back to the grid if asked to turn up your consumption. This means that your business can participate in demand response services with minimal impact on your operations.

You could even employ ‘energy arbitrage’ by buying energy from the grid during low demand periods, storing it in the battery, then discharging it back to the grid during peak periods. As energy costs are lower during off-peak periods, you should receive a higher price per kilowatt hour than you originally paid for the energy when you sell it back to the grid, which enables you to make money simply by storing energy.

Boost your energy resilience

As we move towards a low-carbon future, the grid is becoming increasingly reliant on renewable sources of energy, which can be intermittent. Balancing the grid is therefore becoming more complex, which means the risk of blackouts could rise over the coming years. If your business’s energy supply is interrupted, then your operations could be disrupted as a result – but if you have a battery on-site, then you can significantly boost your business’s energy resilience.

In the event of a blackout, for example, your battery can act as an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) by providing stored energy to keep your operations running. If your business’s activities are energy-intensive, or a loss of power could create a health and safety risk on your site, having a backup power supply on-site in the form of a battery could be particularly beneficial.

Become more sustainable

With the grid becoming more reliant on intermittent renewable sources, we will all need to play our part in helping to balance it. In fact, a recent report by the Carbon Trust found that in order to operate an efficient net-zero energy system by 2050, commercial users will need to provide 11GW of flexible demand. Stress on the grid is also expected to increase, because as we electrify areas such as heat and transportation, overall electricity demand is predicted to rise substantially.

By installing a battery within your organisation, you should be able to be more flexible in your energy usage. This might involve participating in one of the demand-side response schemes previously mentioned, or you may choose to shift your demand to times when the carbon intensity of the grid is lower, or simply shift your consumption away from peak periods in order to reduce the amount of stress on the networks. In doing so, you can help to support our transition to a cleaner energy system – and you could also help to reduce the costs of upgrading our existing network. By being flexible in your energy usage through battery storage, you will help to minimise the increase in our overall electricity demand, which will reduce the need for expensive network infrastructure upgrades. The Carbon Trust has found that by embracing energy storage and finding greater flexibility, we could reduce the cost of our future energy system by £40 billion.

Ready to seize the benefits of battery storage?

If you’d like to secure the benefits of battery storage for your business, our optimisation experts can help you every step of the way, from finding funding to determining which size battery would be best suited to your needs. Get in touch with us today by calling 01772 689 250 or emailing [email protected]