The firm’s 103MW/238MWh Bollingstedt BESS in Germany, now sold to power firm Alpiq, is still the largest online in the country. In May, Gallmetzer explained to us how it was used by E.ON for a ‘lighthouse project’ to experiment with FCA terms like ramp rates, ancillary caps, feed-in and charge restrictions) over a full year of operation.

“We had the challenge of being the first to be restricted by an FCA for the size of an asset like Bollingstedt, and to be confronted with what it means to operate large-scale BESS on the high voltage grid, which is substantially different to an unrestricted/non-FCA BESS,” Gallmetzer explains. 

“We had the choice of either stopping asset operation or finding a solution with a grid operator that is willing to let us operate.” 

Gallmetzer said E.ON concluded from Bollingstedt that its hundreds of gigawatts of BESS in the grid queue required FCAs to come online, forcing developers to choose between restricted assets or no projects—Eco Stor chose restrictions after identifying investable returns within the FCA conditions. 

It was a learning experience for both sides, and the initial FCA terms were then later softened by E.ON, he adds. 

“That solution in the first place was worse than what it eventually ended up at, because the grid operator learned from Eco Stor about certain things like privately financing energy infrastructure, and actually how BESS is flexible enough to accommodate the grid requirements. So the eventual grid restrictions were made more mild, and I was not shy as to be very transparent to tell everything firsthand to the industry publicly,” he says.

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