Quentin Scrimshire

CEO @modoenergy. We help the world's largest energy asset owners understand what their assets are worth. GB, US, Europe, Australia. NYC.

[Jesse Peltan @JessePeltan]

Batteries make electricity cheaper.

They're crushing ancillary service costs and volatility in Texas.

[Brandt Vermillion @b_vermill]

Took a look at BESS state-of-charge and how it related to prices for energy in ERCOT during Storm Fern.

Awesome to have this data now following Real-Time Co-Optimization!

[Ed Porter @edcporter]

GB BESS project finance now runs through independent battery forecasting. Modo Energy's models have backed 3 GW of capacity and over £1bn in deals. NatWest, Santander, NORD LB all using the same baseline. That's a shift from in-house assumptions to third-party validation.

[Modo Energy @ModoEnergy]

Batteries are already cheaper than gas in short-term flexibility markets, but that doesn't mean building more of them is always the right answer.

As more batteries enter the market, the revenues that made early projects attractive get squeezed.

Too much of any single technology creates its own problems. Good grid planning isn't about deploying the cheapest option at scale.

It's about finding the right combination. Enough storage, enough transmission, enough backup generation - so that each asset is actually being used well.

Getting that balance wrong has real costs, in either direction.

We answer your top questions from our recent documentary on wind curtailment in Great Britain. Full video out now on YouTube

#BESS #PowerSystems #FlexibilityMarkets

[Ed Porter @edcporter]

Modo Energy had plenty of follow-up questions to the GB wind curtailment documentary... so, here are a few of your questions, answered.

[Ed Porter @edcporter]

What happens when we produce too much power?

Full documentary released on X

[Robin Hawkes @robhawkes]

A great documentary from @ModoEnergy on why wind farms in Scotland are being switched off at the moment.

It's a really beautiful documentary too, I absolutely love their design style and animations. Plus I'm totally stealing that lock analogy to go with my straws 😉

And a pleasant surprise seeing my name and website appear in the credits as a data source.

Keeping the website open to the public is incredibly important to me, especially if it allows others to help tell the stories.

I've linked the full video below.

[Laurent Segalen @MegaWattXinfo]

Scottish wind farms generate nearly half of Great Britain's wind power, but in 2025, turbines there were paid £350 million to switch off. At the same time, Britain spent over a billion pounds firing up gas to replace it. The total bill: £1.35 billion. And it's passed directly onto consumers in their energy bills.

So why is wind curtailment in Great Britain happening, and why is it getting worse?

This is the story of grid constraints. What they are, why they happen, and why solving them is one of the most urgent challenges on the path to clean power. In this documentary, we examine the infrastructure and market constraints behind Great Britain's wind curtailment problem: the transmission bottlenecks between Scotland and England that cap how much clean power can flow south.

https://t.co/TV9dx5Z91U

[Ed Porter @edcporter]

How often did gas set the GB power price for March?

This is a tracker for when the day-ahead price exceeds the short-run marginal cost of the most efficient CCGT in the system. It's a proxy for gas setting the wholesale price.

It shows that the influence of gas on wholesale prices is declining in GB.

For consumers, any CfD-backed generation will mean paying CfD strike prices, but outside the CfD, lower wholesale prices will mean lower costs.

[Quentin Scrimshire @Qscrim]

Why is it so hard to build renewables in New York?

[Ed Porter @edcporter]

10 reasons to add grid-scale battery storage globally:

5 below and another 5 in the source: https://t.co/TcrVQf0hUE

1) Ramp Rates

Batteries reach full output in under a second and can instantly reverse direction, making them more effective at tracking daily solar ramps.

[Timothée Lauvergne @Tim_lve]

1/ 🇫🇷 Le vrai facteur X de la politique énergétique française, c’est la durée de vie du nucléaire existant.

Prolonger ou non, et jusqu’à quand, change tout 🧵👇

[Ed Porter @edcporter]

Metered export data shows a 4% capacity loss after 365 cycles for batteries in Great Britain, broadly in line with manufacturer expectations.

[Ovais Kashif @Ovais_Kashif]

Battery's Ancillary Service → Energy Trading shift, done two different ways: Texas vs. the UK

Batteries switch to energy trading once a market's Ancillary Service products are saturated

In Texas, this new meta means performing fewer, deeper discharges to alleviate congestion during scarcity events

This is why the shift to energy trading has resulted in discharge depth rising 16 → 32%, while the fleet continues to average 0.8 cycles/day

But in the UK, the lack of price spikes means batteries rely on consistently shifting larger volumes of energy instead

And so, in the GB market, the shift to energy trading has resulted in cycling rising 0.5 → 1.2

The same phenomenon, but two different operational strategies

[Ovais Kashif @Ovais_Kashif]

Two economic engines, but the physics stay the same.

Once solar floods the system, the need for batteries scales fast

California got there earlier via targets and incentives; Texas arrived via strong price signals

More in our US wrap-up: https://t.co/mTvyAW6Wjd

[Ovais Kashif @Ovais_Kashif]

California shows how solar-heavy grids resolve the "Net Load Swing" problem

In 2025 CAISO's grid saw average net load ramps of ↑6.5 GW at sunset - huge demand swings that risk breaking the grid

Batteries, responding to prices, smooth this out

Source: https://t.co/kE8rVvB7fW

[Ovais Kashif @Ovais_Kashif]

Battery developers in Texas are used to taking one of two strategies:

(1) build <10MW fast. Target congestion on the distribution network, and benefit from quicker connection timelines.

(2) build 50+ MW and enjoy economies-of-scale

Those option 2's are finally coming through queue, and now make up over half the batteries in ERCOT.

Costs have tipped in favour of larger sites, but with $/kW revenues at their lowest in 2025, we might see smaller sites prioritized again

Source: https://t.co/GrTAVgB34g

[Ovais Kashif @Ovais_Kashif]

Four takeaways from the Modo Energy ERCOT battery storage livestream

1. Four-hour batteries are arriving in Texas, supported by extended even price spikes and falling CapEx costs

Source: https://t.co/M4kDDDz30Q

[Ed Porter @edcporter]

Germany’s intraday market is the deepest and most volatile in Europe. More than a million trades clear daily, with 96 delivery windows open and prices swinging within minutes.

For batteries, this is where speed and flexibility deliver exceptional returns.

Chart from the Weekly Dispatch newsletter - check it out if you want more detail.

[Ed Porter @edcporter]

How does Germany compare to other rapidly developing battery markets?

And, could this be to their advantage as battery costs have declined and site sizes are now larger…

Side note, look at CAISO go 🚀