Commercial battery storage equipment lets businesses store electricity to use it later. This can be electricity from the National Grid or electricity you generate yourself, like solar energy.
The use of commercial batteries is growing in popularity as prices rise and tariffs become more time-sensitive. They reduce energy costs, cut charges related to peak demand, store excess solar energy and, in some cases, provide backup power during outages. In Great Britain, you can also trade excess energy for additional revenue.
While the battery hardware you choose for your site is important, the software that operates it is actually the major factor determining the level of savings you’ll make. We cover why in this article and how to avoid making the most common mistakes when investing in one.
Commercial necessity: why battery storage is becoming more widespread
There are three reasons battery storage is becoming more widespread among businesses.
First, energy bills.
UK manufacturing electricity averaged 17.08p per kWh in Q2 2025, excluding the Climate Change Levy. In Ireland, non-household electricity prices reached €0.2726 per kWh in the first half of 2025, among the highest in the EU. For facilities managers, finance directors, and hospitality operators, electricity has become a board-level cost line to control in the past few years.
Second, on-site generation.
Solar adoption has grown as the cost of installing panels has fallen by 87% since 2010. More commercial roofs are generating their own electricity from solar panels during the day. This has led to the UK having a capacity of 18GW of installed solar capacity. The government’s aim is getting to 45-47GW by 2030, or enough to power the equivalent of nine million homes.
Third, peak demand charges.
The amount of electricity you use at your busiest moment can affect what you pay for the billing cycle. Many utility providers set the rate for the month based on the site’s highest half-hour demand during a billing period. A battery can reduce that spike by discharging during peak periods and charging when electricity is cheaper.
The savings commercial battery storage delivers comes from:
- Storing solar energy for use on site instead of exporting it at a lower rate
- Charging when electricity is cheap and discharging when it is expensive
- Reducing peak demand charges by discharging during the site's busiest periods
- Earning trading revenue in Great Britain by participating in wholesale electricity markets
- Providing backup power in some setups, reducing the need for a separate diesel generator or avoiding the cost of downtime during outages
Hardware: what’s in a battery storage system
There are several parts to commercial battery systems that work together to store, convert and release electricity at the right time:
- Battery packs: these stores the electricity and most are lithium ion batteries
- Inverter: converts the battery’s DC storage so your building's AC power supply can use it
- Controller or gateway: decides when to charge and when to discharge your batteries, based on set rules or guidance from software
- Switchgear and cabling: connects the battery to the site's electrical installation, allowing it to charge from the grid and discharge into the building when needed
- Solar connection: where solar panels are installed, the battery connects to them so it can store the electricity they generate rather than exporting it straight to the grid
What to consider before buying a battery
Commercial battery systems typically range from 100 kWh to 5 MWh. Choosing the right setup means understanding your site, and these are the main factors:
| What to consider | Why it matters | |
|---|---|---|
| Site Load Profile | How much electricity the building uses during the day, and when your usage is high or low | If the battery charges and discharges at the wrong times, you won’t get all the savings you were hoping for |
| Solar | If you already have solar panels, or intend to install them | If you can’t use all the solar power you generate, you sell it back to the grid for a fraction of the savings you’d make if you use it yourself. |
| Peak demand pattern | Whether your site has short jumps in electricity use | Some electricity providers penalise clients by setting their bill for the whole month at peak rate. Batteries can protect you from these price spikes. |
| Backup power | Whether you expect the battery storage to key equipment or areas running during a power cut | If backup is important as well as cutting bills, you’ll need larger batteries that change the economics of the deal |
| EV charging | Whether you use or intend to add EV chargers and how much extra demand they create | Adding EVs can push a site towards it maximum electricity that batteries can help to mitigate |
| Available space | Where the battery would go, and whether there is enough room for it | If there isn't the space, the installation costs more or the project may not work on that site at all |
| Geography | In Great Britain, eligible batteries can already trade in wholesale electricity markets for additional revenue. In Ireland, similar opportunities are expected but are not yet live | Trading revenue can significantly improve the return on a battery investment, so knowing what is available in your market matters when sizing and specifying the system |
| Ambition | Whether you want lower electricity bills only, or also want backup support or extra revenue | A system designed only to cut bills needs a different setup from one that also provides backup or earns trading revenue, and the cost reflects that. Be clear early on what you want to stop scope and budget creep. |
For example, a hotel generating solar during the day, charging guest vehicles in the evening, and paying higher electricity rates in the late afternoon needs a battery set up to store that solar power and reduce costs during those expensive hours. A factory that uses a lot of electricity the moment it starts up in the morning needs a battery big enough to cover that spike.
Whatever your business does, it is worth testing different combinations of hardware and software against your actual usage before committing to a system.
What the software does and why it’s so important
The hardware determines how much electricity you can store while the software decides whether the battery charges at the right time, discharges at the right time and responds when conditions on site change. The wrong software means the benefits you were expecting won’t materialise.
Here is what good battery software does, in practice:
- Reads the tariff: the actual time-of-use rates, DUoS bands and export payments the site pays
- Estimates site demand: using weather data, historical usage and occupancy patterns to predict load
- Assesses expected solar generation: forecasting how much power the panels will produce and when
- Checks battery status: how much charge is stored, how much capacity is available and what is already committed
- Plans charging and discharging: choosing the cheapest tariffs to charge and the most expensive to discharge
- Updates its plan dynamically: for example, if there’s cloud cover or more delivery vans are recharging than expected, the software adjusts when the battery charges and discharges to keep the savings on track.
The platform for your site should not just follow a fixed charging timetable but decide what the batteries should do based on your priorities and situations on the site.
Why some battery installations miss target
Five reasons why commercial batteries don’t earn what they should include:
- Wrong size: Too small and it runs out of power before the most expensive part of the day is over. Too large and you’re paying for storage it never uses
- Still running on the original settings: The installer set a charging schedule at installation and no one has changed it since, even if the business has added new equipment like EV chargers or extra solar panels
- Fixed charging and discharging schedule: The battery follows the clock instead of reacting to electricity costs at different times
- Nothing is joined up: If the battery storage software doesn't connect the building, solar panels, EV chargers and other electrical assets, each one works to the rules it was programmed with instead of being coordinated as one system
- No one “owns” it: No one is responsible for checking it’s delivering the promised savings so, over time, the battery array becomes background equipment
These are not hardware failures. Companies don’t save as much as they could because the software controlling the system wasn't built to adapt to changing conditions. Fix that and you won’t need to replace your existing equipment, in most cases.
Battery trading in the UK
So far, we've covered savings on electricity bills. In Great Britain, you can also earn revenue from your battery by trading electricity on the wholesale market.
Wholesale electricity prices change throughout the day. A battery that charges when electricity is cheap and sends it back to the grid when the price is higher earns money on the difference.
Before November 2024, the only way a company could use its commercial battery storage setup to trade on the wholesale electricity market was through the site's own energy supplier. Most suppliers chose not to offer the service.
A rule change approved by the energy regulator Ofgem, known as P415, changed that. Now, a separate company can manage the trading on your behalf and you don't need to change energy supplier.
As a result, battery trading revenue is available to more businesses than it was even two years ago.
What to ask a battery installer before you decide to proceed
Building a battery storage facility is complicated. There are so many moving parts that the quote (and savings you’re promised) may not come to pass after the system has been fitted.
Here are the questions you should ask and why they matter:
| Question to ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| What electricity prices has this model used? | If the model uses the wrong prices, the savings look better on paper than they will on your real bill. |
| What is this battery mainly meant to do for us? | Batteries have limits to the power they can store. Choose the main reason you want it because the more of it you use for one job like backup power, there’s less available for cutting bills or housing solar energy. |
| What happens if the site changes later? | If you add EV chargers, new equipment, or longer opening hours, the site may use electricity in a very different way, and the battery may save less money than expected. |
| Who will keep checking how the battery is performing? | Someone inside the business needs to own battery performance, while the installer and software provider provide the data and support needed to keep savings on track with target. |
| How often should I review the results? | If you do not check the results often enough, it may take a while for you to spot the battery is saving less money than expected. |
| If extra revenue is included, does the model show it as a bonus rather than a promise? | Because electricity rates are so flexible, you should not approve a project on money that may never arrive. |
| How quickly will the battery wear out if we use it hard? | If the battery wears out faster than expected, it may hold less power and reduce your return. |
| Will this work with the equipment we already plan to buy? | If it does not, the project can slow down, cost more, or change previous decisions you’ve made, which may have a knockon effect on entry costs. |
Where GridVolt fits in
We've got two main products that reduce what you pay for electricity and, in Great Britain, earn revenue from your battery:
- Energy Manager: Energy Manager handles the day-to-day control of your battery, solar, EV chargers, and building load, deciding when to charge and discharge based on your actual electricity rates.
- GridTrade: Available in Great Britain only, GridTrade earns extra revenue from your battery by trading electricity on the wholesale market on your behalf, without you having to change energy supplier.
We provide software and on-site controls for compatible third-party batteries and site assets, working with brands including Huawei, Sigenergy, Solis, Goodwe, Pylontech, SolarEdge, Schneider Electric, and ABB via Modbus and BACnet. We can also supply commercial battery hardware directly where that suits the project better.
If you have batteries on-site right now or are looking for an installation, get in touch with us. We'll check compatibility and show you what the software can do on your site.
Our software makes a difference to clients with a recent deployment improving battery savings by 41% in the first 70 days. To get in touch, use our contact form.