Storage earns on the shape of your demand, not the size of your bill.
Two sites paying the same annual total can need very different batteries, or none. We work from your half-hourly data and tell you which one you are.
Where a commercial battery earns
A commercial battery pays in a handful of specific ways, and most sites only have two or three of them available.
Peak shaving
Charging in the quiet hours and discharging across your demand peaks pulls down the half-hourly maximum that your capacity and distribution charges are set against.
Avoiding an upgrade
Where a new line, a compressor or an EV fleet would push the site past its agreed supply capacity, a battery can absorb the peak and keep you inside it. That is often cheaper and far quicker than a reinforcement application.
Making the most of your own generation
An array sized to the roof rather than to the load will export mid-afternoon at a poor rate. Storage keeps those units on site for the shift that needs them.
Backup for the circuits that matter
Not the whole site. The circuits where an outage costs real money: refrigeration, a server room, process control, a till system.
Half-hourly data is how we size it
Half-hourly import data is what turns a conversation into a specification. It shows the size of your peak, how long the peak lasts, how often it comes back, and whether it is one machine starting or the whole site switching on at the same time. Those four things decide the capacity and the power rating, in that order.
A site with a short sharp peak needs power. A site with a long flat evening needs capacity. Guessing which one you are is how batteries end up the wrong size.
What to send us
None of this is hard to get hold of, and a supplier will provide the data for any half-hourly metered site on request.
- A year of half-hourly import data for the MPAN
- Your current contract rates, including capacity and availability charges
- The agreed supply capacity and the main breaker rating
- A list of the loads you already know are the problem
- Anything planned that will change the shape: new plant, a fleet, a shift pattern change
What you get back
A model showing your demand peak before and after, the capacity and power rating that produces that result, and every assumption written down so your own people can check it.
We also tell you when the answer is that storage does not pay on this site. That happens, usually where the demand is flat and the tariff has no peak worth avoiding, and you are better off hearing it from us than paying for a battery to find out.
One project or three
Worth doing together
- One grid application instead of three.
- One set of switchgear and one cable route.
- Solar, storage and charging designed against the same load profile.
- A single programme and a single point of responsibility.
Worth doing in stages
- Where capital is phased and the early saving funds the next phase.
- Where the roof needs work before an array goes on it.
- Where the fleet arrives next year and the charger sizing is still moving.
- Where a grid constraint means the export design has to be settled first.
- We will tell you which of these you are, and we will quote the phased version as well if it is the better call.
What a proposal from us contains
- The model
- Peak before and after, with the assumptions listed
The demand curve we modelled, the capacity and power we applied to it and the result. Every assumption is named, including the tariff rates and the shift pattern, so you can challenge any of them.
- The specification
- Usable capacity, continuous power, cabinet footprint and ventilation
Usable capacity rather than the headline figure, the continuous output the system will actually hold, and the physical space and ventilation it needs. The location has to be agreed before the design is fixed.
- The electrical scope
- Switchgear, protection, metering and the cable route
What we are connecting to, what protection goes in, where the metering sits and how the cable gets there. This is usually a bigger part of the cost than people expect, and it is where two quotes differ most.
- The grid position
- G99 application status, any export limitation and any conditions
Whether the application is submitted, approved or awaiting a decision, and any condition the Distribution Network Operator has attached. A condition can change the design, so we never present a price as fixed before the position is known.
- The commercial case
- Price on application, with the funding routes side by side
The capital figure, the lease or asset finance route and the funded route, set out together with what each one does to the saving. No payback figure without the data behind it.
- What is excluded
- Civils, groundworks, asbestos, supply reinforcement
Exclusions are listed on the front of the proposal rather than buried at the back. If any of them turn out to be needed we price them as a variation and tell you before the work, not after.
Common questions about commercial storage
No. The zero rate is domestic only, so a commercial battery is charged at the standard rate. We show it separately on the proposal so the capital figure and the recoverable element are both clear.
It depends on the capacity and on whether it goes in as indoor cabinets or an outdoor container. We give you a footprint and a ventilation requirement at proposal stage, and the location has to be decided before the design is fixed because it changes the cable route and the protection.
Markets exist for sites that can respond to grid signals, and a battery can take part. The revenue is not guaranteed and the contracts are long, so we present it as an upside on top of a case that already works rather than as the thing that makes the case.
An annual inspection, firmware kept up to date, and the ventilation and filters kept clear. We quote a maintenance plan with the proposal rather than leaving it implied, so the running cost is in the numbers from the start.