How battery energy storage can help facilities management meet their net zero goals.

How BESS can help facilities managers

BESS can solve many of the challenges facing facilities managers around these next steps for Net Zero:

• Avoid a DNO upgrade

A great deal of UK businesses are experiencing capacity issues as they expand their sites or introduce new technology such as EV charging and heat pumps. If your DNO quotes you higher than £200,000 for your capacity upgrade then it’s worth looking at battery storage as a cost-effective alternative.

• Manage energy prices

If your energy prices are high during peak periods, it could be more cost-effective to use BESS. Our systems automatically buy and store energy during periods with lower tariffs, enabling your buildings to use it during peak tariff periods. BESS can also give you the ability to sell energy back to the grid, providing an additional revenue stream and helping improve local grid resilience.

• Integrate with solar

Solar power is now a tool for reducing costs as much as cutting carbon emissions. A recent study by PowerMarket found that using just 5% of UK commercial buildings’ rooftop space could save £12.6 billion per year on energy bills. BESS can help optimise the value of rooftop renewables by storing surplus ‘green’ energy to make it available as and when it is required. This also boosts the return on investment from renewables.

Crucially, if there is a large cost differential between the cost of energy export and import, then BESS can provide a real return on investment here.

• Improve viability

Maximising on-site renewable energy can reduce the cost of supplying electricity to infrastructure such as heat pumps and EV chargers. This can be make or break when it comes to the business case for heat pumps, which is often marginal in the UK due to gas having a lower cost than electricity. Put simply, if you’re looking to implement solar PV arrays or install heat pumps, BESS can reduce the payback period of this infrastructure investment.

BESS in an energy ecosystem

A battery energy storage system is integrated with a site’s existing energy infrastructure, sitting on the same meter points or substation as other assets on site. In addition to managing the peak loads of EV chargers or heat pumps, a BESS can also track other loads on site as well as the total site load. In this way, a BESS helps to ensure that your combination of site loads does not exceed your capacity limit.

Does a building need solar to benefit from a battery energy storage system?

Not every building or site will have renewables installed – but these buildings can still benefit from BESS. Our systems can link directly to the grid, charging when a site’s power demand is at its lowest and then providing that buffer when power usage is at its peak. This could have the benefit of reducing energy bills. A smart BESS can respond to changing electricity tariffs in real time, charging the batteries on low-cost, off-peak tariffs, and then discharging that energy for use when tariffs are at their peak.

Find out more

We’ve poured all our expertise on BESS for buildings into a new white paper – you can download it here. And if you’d like to find out more about how a BESS could be right for your premises, talk to us.