Brazil's Brasol to invest $26m in commercial batteries-as-a-service

With energy storage tipped to boom in Brazil, commercial and industrial (C&I) solar-as-a-service company Brasol has opened a Business Unity BESS (battery energy storage system) division focusing on C&I batteries-as-a-service via customer-side, “behind the meter” systems; off-grid sites; and utility-scale facilities.

“At Business Unity BESS, we replicate Brasol’s successful model of implementing energy transition solutions as a service, without the need for investment by the customer, guaranteeing a discount for the customer and, above all, assuming the project risks in their place,” Diogo Zaverucha, director of the company’s Energy Storage Business Unit, told pv magazine. “We already do this with photovoltaic generation, both in the remote, distributed-generation model and in the generation model close to the load, always transforming what would be the customer’s initial investment into a monthly cost, that is, transforming capex [capital expenditure] into opex [operating expenditure].”

According to the director, Brasol plans to invest BRL 150 million ($26.4 million) in the implementation of BESS-as-a-service for C&I consumers in 2025. It is already possible to offer customers up to a 20% discount on the electricity tariff they would pay to the distributor, without the need to invest in batteries, says the executive.

The assessment is that, this year, batteries should gain traction especially in behind-the-meter applications for this consumer profile and in the agricultural market, eager for energy consumption.

“The agricultural market increasingly needs energy, mainly to power its irrigation pivots. Currently, the agricultural market is poorly served by distributors, as it is concentrated in isolated areas. So a good part of this market runs on diesel. And today it is cheaper to generate energy through microgrids with diesel and photovoltaic energy than to rely solely on diesel. So we believe that there will start to be a herd effect in this market,” says Zaverucha.

Regulation will unlock pent-up demand

According to the executive, in addition to these segments with more immediate potential, there is a huge pent-up demand in the Brazilian market for other BESS applications, both in generation, transmission and distribution, which still depend on clearer regulations, which should be published by the end of this year. “Due to the lack of regulation, we cannot implement BESS to solve these problems. So, when regulation is in fact established, the market will gain traction exponentially. We already have ready companies, a structured supply chain, and sufficient prices, but we do not have regulation,” comments Zaverucha.

The director of Brasol compares the scenario of the first regulation of distributed generation (DG) with the current one for BESS. “We are experiencing a moment that is the opposite of what distributed generation experienced. The regulation of DG was published in 2012, but the market actually took shape in 2017. Although we already had the regulatory framework that allowed the market to exist, it only began to gain traction in 2017, when the price of the photovoltaic systems fell. At BESS, we are experiencing exactly the opposite. BESS has already reached a value that makes financial sense to use energy storage in various applications to solve problems in the electricity sector. But we do not have the regulation yet”, he said.

Brasol is preparing to work on utility-scale projects in conjunction with centralized generation and the transmission system. “We are positioned to participate in the BESS auction and are working with several distributors and transmission companies to implement basic projects to solve the problems they have been facing,” says Zaverucha.

Brasol considers five strategic consumer profiles to receive BESS:

Consumers who want to increase their consumption and the distributor does not have the infrastructure to supply it. This usually applies to industrial customers at the edge of the distributor’s network, where it is expensive to build new network infrastructure, such as a substation. “One example is the bus depots in São Paulo, which need to charge electric buses but do not have the necessary electrical infrastructure.”
Consumers who are not connected to the distribution grid. This is particularly relevant for the agricultural sector, which often relies on diesel generators for power, with all the logistical and environmental costs involved.
“Group A” commercial and industrial consumers, who are connected to medium voltage grid and have seasonal energy consumption. These consumers pay peak and off-peak tariffs, and BESS can help them arbitrage energy by charging when energy is cheap and discharging when it is expensive.
Consumers who suffer from poor power quality. This includes factories that experience voltage and frequency fluctuations, which can disrupt production processes. BESS can be used to stabilize the quality of power received by these customers.
Consumers experiencing power outages. BESS can provide backup power to critical loads during power outages.

From pv magazine Brasil.