Revealed in the firm’s recent trading update, the discussion around a “weak revenue environment for BESS assets” echoed the thoughts of Gresham House Energy Storage Fund, another major UK-based storage investor, who said that this was due to assets not being able to participate in balancing the GB grid or replacing gas-fired generation to their fullest capability.

In the financial results, however, HEIT’s chair, Norman Crighton, stated that “independent market experts expect trading conditions to improve throughout 2024”, with the firm’s longer-duration 2-hour batteries continuing to outperform shorter-duration BESS.

One of the major influences that impacted HEIT’s portfolio was the implementation issues of National Grid ESO’s Open Balancing Platform, an aspect that Modo Energy had previously referenced in contributing to December having the lowest BESS revenues since 2020.

The platform, which introduced bulk dispatch functionality, allows for more instructions to be issued to batteries at any one time, but due to technical issues, the control room reverted to legacy systems for dispatching batteries on 15 December.

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