enSights launches storage calculator for sizing, financial projections

US-based clean energy optimization platform company enSights has launched an AI-powered battery energy storage system (BESS) tool to help developers and asset owners with battery sizing and calculating financial returns based on energy market and grid support opportunities.

According to the tool developers, the calculator can recommend optimal battery size and operation modes to introduce economies of scale to battery deployment and instanteneously generate financial projects, visualising energy and cash flows.

“While the rapidly growing energy storage market offers a great deal of opportunity, it still faces significant challenges, such as high capital costs, energy price volatility, and variable incentive structures,” said Alon Mashkovich, co-founder and CEO of enSights. “We developed our storage calculator to not only mitigate these risks for decision makers, but to make BESS design cost-effective so that energy stakeholders can unlock market opportunities, while maximizing battery lifespan.”

enSights claims that the tool is capable of both maximizing returns over the asset lifetime and optimizing battery lifespan by accounting for critical battery specs and degradation parameters, such as depth of discharge (DoD), round-trip efficiency (RTE), and charge and discharge cycles.

The storage calculator supports battery deployment with and without PV attachments. It also considers a variety of value stacking opportunities, including increased PV self-consumption and demand charge reduction for energy consumers, energy arbitrage and voltage support for independent and regional system operator services, and transmission congestion relief for utility services.

Roy Fadida, co-founder and CPO of enSights, argues that the complexity of battery optimization has severely limited and slowed storage deployment for many developers who approached the company. “Since beta testing our BESS calculator, these select customers have significantly accelerated their battery deployment to meet growing demand in one of the fastest growing storage markets,” he said.

In the product announcement, enSights did not specify if the software platform is applicable is all parts of the US and potentially in other markets. The company is planning to officially launch its product at RE+ 2024 taking place in Anaheim, California, September 9-12.