{"id":19488,"date":"2025-01-13T15:35:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T14:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/?p=19488"},"modified":"2025-02-04T13:40:24","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T12:40:24","slug":"powerbank-two-years-grid-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/blog\/powerbank-two-years-grid-services\/","title":{"rendered":"PowerBank: 2 years of grid services"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Power-bank<\/figure>\n\n\n

When we launched Monta\u2019s PowerBank feature \u2013 a preventative solution to help offload and stabilise the energy grid \u2013 we were as optimistic as true tech entrepreneurs can be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, we dove head-first into this previously unknown area of electric charging. And while we weren\u2019t immediately aware of all complexities (such as the importance of ancillary services), our calculations were promising: we estimated that savings of between 5-10 EUR per AC charger per month would be possible, making it a quite lucrative endeavour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, we also knew that this would be uncharted territory for us. No one had introduced grid services at this scale before, making it both a rewarding and challenging prospect for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PowerBank finally became available for our users in late 2022. Fast-forward to today, and Monta has access to 200K chargers, meaning that \u2013 if our original calculations were correct \u2013 we\u2019d have managed to free up millions of euros in revenue by now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this story\u2019s become much more complicated in the last two years. And while we haven\u2019t been able to reach our original estimates (due to the volume of unforeseen roadblocks we\u2019ve encountered), we\u2019ve been steadily increasing our revenue rates and our grid services model is, by now, both stable and viable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what that means in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chargers (and charging speeds) matter more than you think<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of our first major learnings in grid services was that participating in the most lucrative markets meant that our chargers have to be lightning fast, i.e. compatible with primary reserve (FCR) infrastructure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stabilising grid services will only work with chargers that can pause and resume (or decrease and increase) charging in the space of only a few seconds. Fast meter readings at 1-second intervals are also essential. These parameters meant that we had to rethink all hardware requirements for our grid services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because chargers with non-native OCPP<\/a> setups (like proxies, or OCPP implemented via servers etc.) were incompatible from the start, we began developing a brand new infrastructure to accommodate PowerBank\u2019s requirements \u2013 as well as working with each of our hardware manufacturing partners on potential firmware updates to ensure compatibility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our primary goal was to engineer for increased reaction time, but without increased network traffic \u2013 and we\u2019re happy to say that we were successful. In fact, we even published a white paper<\/a> in March 2023 where we discussed the best ways to prepare charger firmware for grid services. (Sidenote: this white paper was later copied and announced as news by another player in the grid market.)

We now have an up-to-date list of supported charge points<\/a> where you can check which chargers currently support our PowerBank feature \u2013 check it out here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Different bidding zones and requirements for markets<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Another challenge we discovered on our grid services journey: not all countries have a market for ancillary services. And not all markets can participate in grid service projects with only their chargers as assets \u2013 the variation in minimum capacity requirements, symmetry requirements, reaction time requirements is substantial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Denmark, for example, half of the nation\u2019s energy grid (DK1) has a symmetric capacity requirement: If the bid is 1MW, we need to be able to both decrease and increase power of chargers in the bidding area with 1 MW. But increasing the kW output on our chargers is impossible on a large scale, making this a significant challenge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other countries have different infrastructures and specifications. In the UK, well-paid markets are typically smaller zones that require higher local capacity, whereas in Norway, the market is paid close to nothing since its high number of hydro assets already provides the flexibility necessary to balance its energy grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Updating our pricing strategy according to market changes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of the most intriguing aspects of the energy market is its unpredictability. We experienced the more challenging effects of this unpredictability when the main energy market we decided to focus on with our grid services, the Upward Frequency Containment Reserve \u2013 Disturbance (or \u201cupward FCR-D\u201d) lost all momentum during the last 24 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"average
Average price per month for FCR-D up<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like we said, there\u2019s no way to accurately forecast the dips in service prices. However, such a dramatic (and durable) decrease meant that we had to rethink our original strategy: as it stands today, investing in grid services can still be a financially lucrative venture, but we need to stack multiple grid products to get back to our expected price level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expanding capacity, step by step<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, we found the best way to combat these challenges: taking one step at a time in the certification and capacity processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So our first objective was to get certified for dealing with a bid size of 0.1 MW. (This can take several weeks, if not months, to achieve.) Once that was done, we restarted the process with a bit of extra capacity, and so on; by the time we hit 3.2 MW, we got capped as a single asset and had to update our system so it became possible to pool assets into parallel 3.2 MW asset groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does this sound painful? Maybe (especially at the beginning). However, we\u2019re confident that by the time a company reaches the stage of 100-200 MW, it will become much less tiresome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exploring the potential of aggregators<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Already at the planning stage of our PowerBank function, we decided to work with aggregators and tap into their expertise to get quicker results. However, our mutual plans haven\u2019t come to fruition so far \u2013 in a way, this is understandable, since EV chargers are still a relatively new technology (and it might not be an aggregator\u2019s highest priority to optimise their ways of working for them just yet).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, we work with four different aggregators to cover our current markets, which in itself is a complex undertaking. Also, we\u2019ve learned that with aggregators and ancillary markets, there\u2019s no guarantee to participate, even with the available capacity \u2013 from what we can see, the majority of available capacity is often unused and so unable to generate revenue. Which means that we have to include this in all upcoming grid service strategies too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s next for PowerBank?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With these two years behind us, the question is: what\u2019s going to happen now? And we have good news: even though we\u2019ve faced a previously unexpected number of roadblocks on our road towards balancing the energy grid with PowerBank, we are determined to continue on this journey. Here at Monta, we believe that achieving grid stability is essential for a healthy grid, and we\u2019re confident that the revenue stream(s) we envision for our partners will be sustainable very soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words: great things are supposed to be hard. But that doesn\u2019t take away their greatness!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a practical level, we\u2019re committed to building out our chargers\u2019 capacity by solving the hundreds of smaller obstacles we\u2019ve encountered, as well as exploring the OpenADR specification so we can streamline the communication between platforms and grid operators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All in all, these two years have been instrumental to realising exactly how Monta\u2019s PowerBank can help offload and stabilise the energy grid in a way that\u2019s both financially viable and sustainable. All we have to do now is continue our journey towards a healthy grid \u2013 with whatever it takes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further reading:
<\/strong>Balance the grid through EV charge points
<\/a>Monta PowerBank feature<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we launched Monta\u2019s PowerBank feature \u2013 a preventative solution to help offload and stabilise the energy grid \u2013 we were as optimistic as true tech entrepreneurs can be.  In other words, we dove head-first into this previously unknown area of electric charging. And while we weren\u2019t immediately aware of all complexities (such as the importance … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":11654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"article_tags":[],"class_list":["post-19488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-monta-news-updates"],"acf":[],"featured_media_global":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19488"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19892,"href":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19488\/revisions\/19892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19488"},{"taxonomy":"article_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_tags?post=19488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}