Germany’s Tesvolt begins energy trading from pooled commercial batteries

German commercial battery energy storage manufacturer Tesvolt has founded an energy trading subsidiary that will use algorithm-based trading to sell the services of a pool of 100 kWh to 10 MWh batteries.

The Lutherstadt Wittenberg-based business announced yesterday its Tesvolt Energy subsidiary would work with “algotraders” Enspired, from Vienna, Austria; and Munich-based Entrix and The Mobility House, on the energy trading business, and would put the traders into competition with each other.

“With Tesvolt Energy, we are offering businesses and industry a very, very lucrative opportunity to participate in energy trading in the [customer-side] front-of-the-meter sector,” said Daniel Hannemann, co-founder and CEO of Tesvolt AG.

With the German grid requiring ever more flexibility to even out power supply from solar and wind power sites, businesses with batteries can be a valuable source of such flexible capacity. “But apart from the large battery park operators, they often have no chance of finding a good trader who will trade their storage capacity on the grid,” said Hannemann.

With the storage capacity coming from a virtual power plant (VPP) of pooled commercial and industrial batteries, Tesvolt Energy’s joint chief Sebastian Kratz said, “What no one else on the market can offer so far: we work not just with one trader but with three – and with the leading traders in Germany – and put them in competition with each other. The energy trader who generates the highest revenues with its trades, while using the storage units in the most gentle way, can manage the most battery systems in our pool.”

Revenue will be pooled monthly before being divided equally among VPP participants.

Tesvolt Energy has developed software to control the pooled battery storage capacity and generate the highest possible revenue.

At launch, the Tesvolt startup said it already had 100 MWh of VPP battery energy storage capacity in the pipeline. “Many more will be added by the end of the year because the model is so attractive and transparent,” said Tesvolt Energy joint head Anshoo Pandey. “The return on investment is usually three to four years.”

From pv magazine Deutschland.