Re the frequency its 50Hz if it was MHz it would be a microwave!
Two years back it was ESO ancillary mkt that was driving up the sp as the ESO initially provided a high incentive to attract players into the mkt but once they moved the services onto an auction basis prices plummeted. So in some respects a false mkt was created by the ESO and we now have far too much BESS for amount of support ESO require (this changes daily/hourly and is largely linked to how high renewable penetration is so potentially in the future it could come back into its own). The ESO have also altered the algorithms that guide the system engineers to take least cost most effective actions to keep the grid balanced and that has certainly helped the balancing mechanism income stream. Latterly they have also allowed BESS to participate in balancing reserve and those with 2hr systems have benefitted from that although you can already see prices dropping away as more participants come on line (there are a lot of new assets being commissioned over next two years that will double installed capacity and much of it is 1.5-2hr rated). Finally the real money spinner now looks to trading in the wholesale mkt and yesterday it was certainly possibly to be paid to charge up in the afternoon and then sell it back higher mid evening (remember though round trip efficiency is c85-90% here). To do this means you have to find a seller then a buyer later on though (HEIT did this with Pillswood 1 yesterday looking at Elexon) but more BESS are adopting this trading strategy so this may lower spreads long term i suspect. What HEIT don't do, unlike GRID, is have some of their assets on PPA (power purchase agreement) which may give better long run income certainty looking at what they have reported.
Onto the income it certainly improved for Q1 but according to bessanalytics its fallen back a fair bit in May though so I would say 70k/MW/yr should be the stress test. Also you have to factor in this includes capacity mkt payments some of which are single year so will drop out from October although others also kick in. Still even at this level they are only just breaking even but as the new assets come on line later in the year is when they ought to move into having free cash flow to reinstate divi but not sure we will see north of 2p vice the 8p they were paying out. Thus sp still feels full to me and held up by a green premium but with so many new assets coming into this space the market is going to remain saturated for sometime to come.
yes, it's 50Hz (50MHz is VHF, microwaves are 2GHz)
also on units it's £/MW/yr (as @Nickri has below)
it's an interesting transitional time. The FFR end of the time spectrum became saturated and ESO were late in not disadvantaging BESS in longer-time-frame auctions. 24Q1 was also a tricky time from a trading perspective as gas prices got so low so little intra-day variation in pricing. I think all of those (ex FFR) are now reversing. Renewables penetration keeps increasing and some nuclear is coming off line in the next few years i believe. so the environment for BESS should improve. rollout will be substantially slowed with grid connection issues and low profitability of late. if a company wanted to get into BESS they'd buy HEIT now rather than build.
Re the frequency its 50Hz if it was MHz it would be a microwave!
Two years back it was ESO ancillary mkt that was driving up the sp as the ESO initially provided a high incentive to attract players into the mkt but once they moved the services onto an auction basis prices plummeted. So in some respects a false mkt was created by the ESO and we now have far too much BESS for amount of support ESO require (this changes daily/hourly and is largely linked to how high renewable penetration is so potentially in the future it could come back into its own). The ESO have also altered the algorithms that guide the system engineers to take least cost most effective actions to keep the grid balanced and that has certainly helped the balancing mechanism income stream. Latterly they have also allowed BESS to participate in balancing reserve and those with 2hr systems have benefitted from that although you can already see prices dropping away as more participants come on line (there are a lot of new assets being commissioned over next two years that will double installed capacity and much of it is 1.5-2hr rated). Finally the real money spinner now looks to trading in the wholesale mkt and yesterday it was certainly possibly to be paid to charge up in the afternoon and then sell it back higher mid evening (remember though round trip efficiency is c85-90% here). To do this means you have to find a seller then a buyer later on though (HEIT did this with Pillswood 1 yesterday looking at Elexon) but more BESS are adopting this trading strategy so this may lower spreads long term i suspect. What HEIT don't do, unlike GRID, is have some of their assets on PPA (power purchase agreement) which may give better long run income certainty looking at what they have reported.
Onto the income it certainly improved for Q1 but according to bessanalytics its fallen back a fair bit in May though so I would say 70k/MW/yr should be the stress test. Also you have to factor in this includes capacity mkt payments some of which are single year so will drop out from October although others also kick in. Still even at this level they are only just breaking even but as the new assets come on line later in the year is when they ought to move into having free cash flow to reinstate divi but not sure we will see north of 2p vice the 8p they were paying out. Thus sp still feels full to me and held up by a green premium but with so many new assets coming into this space the market is going to remain saturated for sometime to come.
yes, it's 50Hz (50MHz is VHF, microwaves are 2GHz)
also on units it's £/MW/yr (as @Nickri has below)
it's an interesting transitional time. The FFR end of the time spectrum became saturated and ESO were late in not disadvantaging BESS in longer-time-frame auctions. 24Q1 was also a tricky time from a trading perspective as gas prices got so low so little intra-day variation in pricing. I think all of those (ex FFR) are now reversing. Renewables penetration keeps increasing and some nuclear is coming off line in the next few years i believe. so the environment for BESS should improve. rollout will be substantially slowed with grid connection issues and low profitability of late. if a company wanted to get into BESS they'd buy HEIT now rather than build.