Becoming my own small scale Energy Retailer - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 22, 2025, 01:55:06 am
content: I wonder if it would be profitable to become my own small scale energy retailer?Hire a small factory unit in the middle of nowhere (cheap rent) with a big 3 phase power connection and stuff it full of storage batteries and get paid to take the negative price excess solar during the day and resell it at night during peak times at wholesale prices ...Technically it should be possible, it's just a matter of payback time based on the capital cost outlay and rent

author: sandalcandal
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 22, 2025, 03:38:49 am
content: Large industrial scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) have been very profitable for years at this point. I don't see any huge losses in efficiency for smaller scale systems in terms of technical efficiency. It might even be better for reducing grid stress to have distributed BESS to help match all the distributed roof top solar we have now.I think the trouble with trying to do it small scale will be if its worth the cost of admin and all the red tape, getting a site approved by council, fire dept. etc. Compulsory insurances are difficult for such a novel businesses with non-zero hazards speaking from experience. All the FUD from sky spews and co doesn't make things any easier, particular with Karen neighbours. I assume there will need to be some sort of approval and paperwork with AEMO too.The entry cost and complexity can be greatly reduced by virtual power plant type conglomerators like reposit (https://repositpower.com/) but reposit are more targeted at the household level than small commercial. I imagine something like a co-op for small private BESS would be possible but new ground. I haven't done a proper deep dive on it in a few years so there could be something out there already that I dont know about...

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2025, 05:39:21 am
content: That is something dedicated companies do. You are thinking about energy market (hourly pricing of energy), buying energy for cheap and selling it at a suitable time.Your competitors would be doing more complicated multi-market optimization. For example, different types of frequency containment reserves possibly pay well.It's a real market and real business opportunity, but not a guaranteed gold mine. Combining different sources of money, and using your investment (battery) to the fullest, while keeping your business lean and efficient, is the key to success.

author: Andy Chee
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2025, 06:07:17 am
content: This is not too dissimilar to farm land owners selling their land for wind turbines, in exchange for a share of energy profits.The difference of course is that energy generation is much more profitable than energy time shifting.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2025, 10:18:48 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on April 22, 2025, 01:55:06 amWith that setup, you could also provide dynamic grid stabilization.I think the largest problem, which is also beyond your control and influence, is the politics. There are larger special interests who consider that market their own, whether they are in it or not, are not going to welcome competition, and have already paid to own your putative political representatives.It would be like starting a small hospital, or a towing company, which requires approval by the owners of neighboring hospitals or towing companies. At least that is how it works in the US.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2025, 12:18:30 pm
content: Look up how the grid stabilization market in the Australia works. There must be something.For reference, this is what we are working with:https://www.svk.se/siteassets/aktorsportalen/bidra-med-reserver/om-olika-reserver/fcr/fcr-technical-requirements-may-23.pdfClearly laid out specifications how the control needs to work. Daily auction of reserve markets. For example, for FCR-N markets the battery is cycling back and forth linearly trying to maintain 50Hz grid frequency, and on FCR-D your battery would sit most of the time doing nothing, but you getting paid for the possibility for it to respond to larger frequency deviations within a few seconds.For example, here the compensation for a 1MW-capable inverter and battery, with minimum capacity of 0.7MWh, on FCR-D up&down markets 24/7/365 for the last year would have been 220000€. It's something, it's quite appealing, until you realize that if everyone does it, the price will go down due to competition, plus there are operational requirements and costs involved.

author: Gribo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2025, 04:21:53 pm
content: Build an electric car overnight parking lot, combine it with enough solar panels and it's a win win all day long.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2025, 08:05:06 pm
content: Quote from: sandalcandal on April 22, 2025, 03:38:49 amI'd like to see their profit@price distribution ... I suspect BESS has been profitable in Australia because the grid was just that broken, making a lot of their money while the energy companies were over a barrel, even though it's a small percentage of the time.To get over the barrel pricing you need high level access to the market though, they don't offer those ridiculous prices to smalltimers.

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2025, 08:50:01 pm
content: How many kW of power in/out? 1's, 10's, 100's? Rough ballpark.Do you want to participate in the NEM (National electricity market), or do you want to be insulated behind another company that does this for you? If the latter then I think there are some retailers that let you "almost" participate in the market, giving you constantly fluctuating prices, but no idea if they credit generation.If the former you will want to work out what type of registered participant you want to go as (since I last looked it seems there are new categories like Integrated Resource Providers). I suspect that some will be less admin intensive than others. Traditional large loads & generators participating in the market have to meet a bunch of requirements & modelling (faults, ability to react to instructions during serious events, etc) but there might be a category that gets you out of this if you're small enough.The NER (national electricity rules) are a good reading starting point, particularly chapter 2 covering the types of participants & processes of enrolment (including deadlines).https://energy-rules.aemc.gov.au/ner/644Oh and I'll add that IMHO any market particip is a form of gambling and the market has a lot of bigger fish than you. Your only way of "avoiding" this gambling is to be faster than them and closer to the problems, but I still hesitate to call it anything but gambling given the other things that can still go wrong (eg forced to disconnect permanently due to compliance shenanigans). So please do this small, don't throw your life's savings at it.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2025, 09:32:56 pm
content: If you can even get a permit for that.We had a bunch of unopened Lithium primary (!) batteries in their boxes and that was enough to raise some alarms with the health and safety inspections.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2025, 08:04:57 am
content: Quote from: Whales on May 07, 2025, 08:50:01 pmIf you want an islanded system for say disaster resilience, then the cost of a bigger battery is marginal compared to other costs. You could set some capacity aside for balancing.It might even make sense for the regulator to demand software support for it. The systems have to be professionally installed any way, so it can be certified to always reserve X kWh for balancing, it would be extremely dependable in aggregate. This could well be cheaper for the power companies than dealing with the large scale professional gamblers.