Transmission

The battery storage gold rush is over in most major markets. What's replaced it is more complex, more competitive, and if you're not careful with your contracts - potentially more exposed than the merchant era ever was. It is often thought that offtake deals like tolls de-risk a battery project, but that might be one of the biggest misconceptions in BESS right now.

The market is maturing fast, but the players who thrive won't be the ones who got in first - they'll be the ones who understood the complexity earliest.

Sam Harden is Global Director at Enfinity Global, joins Ed to challenge conventional thinking on BESS contracts, market maturity, and what it actually takes to build and operate storage assets at scale.

They cover:

- Why BESS tolls redistribute risk rather than remove it and how availability penalties can cost you more than lost merchant revenue.

- The MACSE auction in Italy: what 15-year fixed-revenue contracts mean for asset owners, and why the incumbent utility won the majority of the first round.

- Whether the battery storage gold rush is truly over and why the market is maturing into an asset class, not saturating.

- How Enfinity Global is futureproofing project design for duration augmentation, grid-forming inverters, and services like inertia and voltage control.

- Why the biggest bottleneck to Europe's 50GW battery buildout isn't technology or capital - it's qualified people.

Want to track BESS revenues, tolling structures, and market dynamics across Europe and beyond? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Free sign up: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=sam_harden

Transcript available here: https://modoenergy.com/transmission-podcast/3f4cebb7-8b40-4ffb-80dd-717002c5747d

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

⏱ CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

0:50 Are tolls a silver bullet for BESS risk management?

5:15 Italy's MACSE auction explained

6:05 Is the battery gold rush over?

10:30 From scarcity trade to operational excellence

13:00 Battery storage as a maturing asset class — good or bad?

16:40 How to develop BESS sites for the future

19:38 Battery augmentation and energy density gains

21:28 Will the battery sector consolidate?

25:13 How to position for above-infrastructure returns

26:25 Operational risk: what spreadsheets can't capture

28:00 Warranties vs. real-world asset management

30:13 Supply chain and talent: the hidden bottleneck

33:12 One change to accelerate European battery rollout

34:49 Wrap-up

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production.

Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

The battery storage gold rush is over in most major markets. What's replaced it is more complex, more competitive, and if you're not careful with your contracts - potentially more exposed than the merchant era ever was. It is often thought that offtake deals like tolls de-risk a battery project, but that might be one of the biggest misconceptions in BESS right now.

The market is maturing fast, but the players who thrive won't be the ones who got in first -they'll be the ones who understood the complexity earliest.

Sam Harden is Global Director at Enfinity Global, joins Ed to challenge conventional thinking on BESS contracts, market maturity, and what it actually takes to build and operate storage assets at scale.

They cover:

- Why BESS tolls redistribute risk rather than remove it and how availability penalties can cost you more than lost merchant revenue.

- The MACSE auction in Italy: what 15-year fixed-revenue contracts mean for asset owners, and why the incumbent utility won the majority of the first round.

- Whether the battery storage gold rush is truly over and why the market is maturing into an asset class, not saturating.

- How Enfinity Global is futureproofing project design for duration augmentation, grid-forming inverters, and services like inertia and voltage control.

- Why the biggest bottleneck to Europe's 50GW battery buildout isn't technology or capital - it's qualified people.

Want to track BESS revenues, tolling structures, and market dynamics across Europe and beyond? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Free sign up: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=sam_harden

Transcript available here: https://modoenergy.com/transmission-podcast/3f4cebb7-8b40-4ffb-80dd-717002c5747d

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

⏱ CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

0:50 Are tolls a silver bullet for BESS risk management?

5:15 Italy's MACSE auction explained

6:05 Is the battery gold rush over?

10:30 From scarcity trade to operational excellence

13:00 Battery storage as a maturing asset class — good or bad?

16:40 How to develop BESS sites for the future

19:38 Battery augmentation and energy density gains

21:28 Will the battery sector consolidate?

25:13 How to position for above-infrastructure returns

26:25 Operational risk: what spreadsheets can't capture

28:00 Warranties vs. real-world asset management

30:13 Supply chain and talent: the hidden bottleneck

33:12 One change to accelerate European battery rollout

34:49 Wrap-up

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production.

Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Most BESS revenue forecasts aren't wrong, they're just being used for the wrong thing. The gap between a valuation-grade forecast and what a project actually earns in a live market is where BESS developers win or lose. The developers who survive that gap are the ones who design for uncertainty from the start - not after the fact.

Recorded live at the Investing in Battery Energy Storage conference, Paul Mason, Chief Investment Officer of Harmony Energy, joins Ed Porter for a return appearance on Transmission.

They cover:

- Why treating a revenue forecast as a fixed cash flow is the most common mistake in BESS development.

- How the listed fund model enabled GB BESS to scale.

- Why splitting BESS revenues into ancillary, wholesale, and balancing mechanism streams is now a misleading framework.

- How Harmony selects new markets in France and Germany: renewable penetration, grid-first site selection, and why any business case dependent on high ancillary revenues is a losing strategy.

- What good optimizer relationships actually look like.

Got follow-up questions? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst : https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=paul_mason

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/a2--s956k-c

⏱ CHAPTERS

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

0:00 Introduction

1:16 What do BESS developers get wrong when building an IPP?

3:25 Why full EPC contracts — and why they still hired project managers

5:28 Duration strategy: the case for 2-hour batteries early

7:00 The full BESS lifecycle — develop, build, operate, sell

8:25 How Harmony raised capital through listed funds (and why it worked then)

10:45 Why listed fund capital flowed out and what came next

13:20 The Foresight asset sale: private vs. public valuation

15:08 New markets: what Harmony looks for in France, Germany and beyond

18:05 Market timing — should you enter early or wait for wholesale dynamics?

20:12 Grid connection across Europe: where it works and where it doesn't

22:33 Operating a live fleet: what drives performance once assets are running

24:10 How to work with optimizers without burning the relationship

26:30 BM trading trials with Tesla — what the data showed

28:45 Is GB still exciting for Harmony, or is it old hat?

30:20 Audience Q&A: colocation, revenue cannibalization, and market saturation

32:35 If you ran European power: one thing to fix

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Transmission is hosted by Ed Porter, Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

New episodes every week.

Most BESS revenue forecasts aren't wrong, they're just being used for the wrong thing. The gap between a valuation-grade forecast and what a project actually earns in a live market is where BESS developers win or lose. The developers who survive that gap are the ones who design for uncertainty from the start - not after the fact.

Recorded live at the Investing in Battery Energy Storage conference, Paul Mason, Chief Investment Officer of Harmony Energy, joins Ed Porter for a return appearance on Transmission.

They cover:

- Why treating a revenue forecast as a fixed cash flow is the most common mistake in BESS development.

- How the listed fund model enabled GB BESS to scale.

- Why splitting BESS revenues into ancillary, wholesale, and balancing mechanism streams is now a misleading framework.

- How Harmony selects new markets in France and Germany: renewable penetration, grid-first site selection, and why any business case dependent on high ancillary revenues is a losing strategy.

- What good optimizer relationships actually look like.

Got follow-up questions? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst : https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=paul_mason

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/a2--s956k-c

⏱ CHAPTERS

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

0:00 Introduction

1:16 What do BESS developers get wrong when building an IPP?

3:25 Why full EPC contracts — and why they still hired project managers

5:28 Duration strategy: the case for 2-hour batteries early

7:00 The full BESS lifecycle — develop, build, operate, sell

8:25 How Harmony raised capital through listed funds (and why it worked then)

10:45 Why listed fund capital flowed out and what came next

13:20 The Foresight asset sale: private vs. public valuation

15:08 New markets: what Harmony looks for in France, Germany and beyond

18:05 Market timing — should you enter early or wait for wholesale dynamics?

20:12 Grid connection across Europe: where it works and where it doesn't

22:33 Operating a live fleet: what drives performance once assets are running

24:10 How to work with optimizers without burning the relationship

26:30 BM trading trials with Tesla — what the data showed

28:45 Is GB still exciting for Harmony, or is it old hat?

30:20 Audience Q&A: colocation, revenue cannibalization, and market saturation

32:35 If you ran European power: one thing to fix

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Transmission is hosted by Ed Porter, Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

New episodes every week.

Battery storage in Africa is one of the most misunderstood opportunities in global energy. Only 8% of the continent’s hydro power has been tapped. In Malawi, just 14% of the population is connected to the grid. Africa needs to add an estimated 100 GW of capacity in the next decade and the fastest way is with renewables and storage. Michael Cupit develops BESS projects in Malawi and Kenya, and he’s spent years working inside the gap between how these markets look from the outside and how they actually operate on the ground.

In this episode of Transmission, Ed Porter sits down with Michael to break down the real risk picture in Sub-Saharan Africa: why mid-to-high-teen IRRs are the reality, how 20-year capacity payment contracts compare to merchant BESS in Europe, and what it actually takes to get a project from bare earth to operational - a journey that took eight years in Malawi.

They cover:

• The two biggest misconceptions about doing business in Africa
• How South Africa, Malawi, and Kenya's grids differ and where batteries fit in each
• The role of DFIs, MIGA guarantees, and multilateral risk wrappers in making projects bankable
• China's declining role in African infrastructure and what's replacing it
• The O&M challenge: building operational capability from scratch in frontier markets
• Why winning the argument for renewables means making the commercial case - not just the climate one

Want to track battery storage capacity and market trends across Africa and beyond? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Free sign up: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=michael_cupit

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@modoenergy

────────────────────────────

⏱ CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

1:08 The two biggest misconceptions about Africa

4:30 IRRs, risk and contracted vs merchant returns

8:00 Why Africa is skipping the fossil fuel grid model

9:40 South Africa: load shedding, rooftop solar and grid constraints

13:00 Battery use cases: the transmission line problem

17:00 Malawi's grid: run-of-river hydro and the diesel spread

19:00 Kenya: geothermal, 10 GW buildout and hyperscaler demand

22:30 Rare earth mining and the electrification push in Malawi

26:30 Financing: DFIs, MIGA, project finance and currency risk

31:45 How long does it really take? The 8-year development journey

33:10 China's role in African infrastructure - myth vs reality

33:45 Engineering talent, local capacity and the O&M challenge

36:55 What success looks like in 5 years

────────────────────────────

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Battery storage in Africa is one of the most misunderstood opportunities in global energy. Only 8% of the continent’s hydro power has been tapped. In Malawi, just 14% of the population is connected to the grid. Africa needs to add an estimated 100 GW of capacity in the next decade and the fastest way is with renewables and storage. Michael Cupit develops BESS projects in Malawi and Kenya, and he’s spent years working inside the gap between how these markets look from the outside and how they actually operate on the ground.

In this episode of Transmission, Ed Porter sits down with Michael to break down the real risk picture in Sub-Saharan Africa: why mid-to-high-teen IRRs are the reality, how 20-year capacity payment contracts compare to merchant BESS in Europe, and what it actually takes to get a project from bare earth to operational - a journey that took eight years in Malawi.

They cover:

• The two biggest misconceptions about doing business in Africa
• How South Africa, Malawi, and Kenya's grids differ and where batteries fit in each
• The role of DFIs, MIGA guarantees, and multilateral risk wrappers in making projects bankable
• China's declining role in African infrastructure and what's replacing it
• The O&M challenge: building operational capability from scratch in frontier markets
• Why winning the argument for renewables means making the commercial case - not just the climate one

Want to track battery storage capacity and market trends across Africa and beyond? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Free sign up: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=michael_cupit

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@modoenergy

────────────────────────────

⏱ CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

1:08 The two biggest misconceptions about Africa

4:30 IRRs, risk and contracted vs merchant returns

8:00 Why Africa is skipping the fossil fuel grid model

9:40 South Africa: load shedding, rooftop solar and grid constraints

13:00 Battery use cases: the transmission line problem

17:00 Malawi's grid: run-of-river hydro and the diesel spread

19:00 Kenya: geothermal, 10 GW buildout and hyperscaler demand

22:30 Rare earth mining and the electrification push in Malawi

26:30 Financing: DFIs, MIGA, project finance and currency risk

31:45 How long does it really take? The 8-year development journey

33:10 China's role in African infrastructure - myth vs reality

33:45 Engineering talent, local capacity and the O&M challenge

36:55 What success looks like in 5 years

────────────────────────────

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Biomethane currently supplies just 1% of UK gas demand. Could it reach 30% by 2050? Philipp Lukas, founder and CEO of Future Biogas, makes the case.

The UK uses around 700 terawatt hours of gas every year. Even as electrification reduces that to 150–250 TWh by 2050, the gas that remains will be harder than ever to replace. Industrial heat, steel, glass, shipping, aviation.

Biomethane, produced from organic waste and agricultural byproducts through anaerobic digestion, could supply 50–60 TWh of that demand. That's roughly 10 times what the UK produces today.

In this episode of Transmission, Ed speaks with Philipp Lukas, CEO of Future Biogas. Philipp explains how the technology works, why the gas grid is the biggest battery in the country, and why turning it off would be a mistake.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Battery revenues, nodal spreads, trading strategies, Ko answers your most business-critical questions instantly, powered by Modo's IOSCO-aligned benchmark data. Try Ko for free now→https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=philipp_lukas

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Y1pWt2-cKi4

Chapters

0:00 Introduction — the gas grid as a clean energy asset

1:20 What everyone gets wrong about biogas

2:00 How anaerobic digestion works (the basics)

8:00 Ranking the top uses of biomethane

10:00 The price gap: natural gas vs. biomethane today

15:00 The future of the UK gas grid — 700 TWh to 200 TWh

18:00 How much could biomethane supply by 2050?

25:00 Why the gas grid won’t be switched off

29:00 Dunkelflaute and the case for backup gas

33:00 Feedstocks: sewage, food waste, animal manure, energy crops

37:00 Biogas vs. ethanol: land use and the rotation argument

40:00 How biogas plants actually work (reliability, engineering)

43:00 The subsidy journey and the obligation model

47:00 Closing

Biomethane currently supplies just 1% of UK gas demand. Could it reach 30% by 2050? Philipp Lukas, founder and CEO of Future Biogas, makes the case.

The UK uses around 700 terawatt hours of gas every year. Even as electrification reduces that to 150–250 TWh by 2050, the gas that remains will be harder than ever to replace. Industrial heat, steel, glass, shipping, aviation.

Biomethane, produced from organic waste and agricultural byproducts through anaerobic digestion, could supply 50–60 TWh of that demand. That's roughly 10 times what the UK produces today.

In this episode of Transmission, Ed speaks with Philipp Lukas, CEO of Future Biogas. Philipp explains how the technology works, why the gas grid is the biggest battery in the country, and why turning it off would be a mistake.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Battery revenues, nodal spreads, trading strategies, Ko answers your most business-critical questions instantly, powered by Modo's IOSCO-aligned benchmark data. Try Ko for free now→ https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=philipp_lukas

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Y1pWt2-cKi4

Chapters

0:00 Introduction — the gas grid as a clean energy asset

1:20 What everyone gets wrong about biogas

2:00 How anaerobic digestion works (the basics)

8:00 Ranking the top uses of biomethane

10:00 The price gap: natural gas vs. biomethane today

15:00 The future of the UK gas grid — 700 TWh to 200 TWh

18:00 How much could biomethane supply by 2050?

25:00 Why the gas grid won’t be switched off

29:00 Dunkelflaute and the case for backup gas

33:00 Feedstocks: sewage, food waste, animal manure, energy crops

37:00 Biogas vs. ethanol: land use and the rotation argument

40:00 How biogas plants actually work (reliability, engineering)

43:00 The subsidy journey and the obligation model

47:00 Closing

Eight in ten clean energy projects never make it through development. Not because of bad ideas, but because of how the process is run: sequential, analog, and fragmented across consultants, spreadsheets, and months of waiting.

In this episode of Transmission, Alejandro speaks with Stuart Pomeroy from Paces .Stuart breaks down exactly why the traditional development model fails, what a parallel workflow looks like in practice, and how compressing land, environmental, interconnection, and permitting work into a single ecosystem can cut development timelines by more than half.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Alejandro De Diego - US Market Analyst

Battery revenues, nodal spreads, trading strategies, Ko answers your most business-critical questions instantly, powered by Modo's IOSCO-aligned benchmark data. Try Ko for free now→ https://modoenergy.com/sign-up

For more information on Paces,

Head to their website → https://www.paces.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pacesai/

Reach Stuart at [email protected]

0:00 Introduction: the hidden cost of delay in clean energy

3:18 How clients use Paces day-to-day

4:29 The data model: land, zoning, and interconnection layers

5:25 The old sequential development model

7:30 Cutting development time by 50%+

9:02 Does Paces replace environmental consultants?

11:05 Cost savings and pipeline conversion metrics

13:47 Assessing permitting risk and policy uncertainty

15:42 The Permitting Predictor tool

17:17 Predicting landowner behaviour

18:37 Hottest US regions for development activity

27:42 Community sentiment and opposition risk

31:22 Off-grid development and on-site generation

34:10 Cost, complexity, and time: the off-grid advantage

36:40 LMP data suite and revenue signals

37:40 Getting projects bankable: track record and case studies

39:31 What Paces are building next

41:23 Contrarian takes: off-grid and permitting

44:19 Closing

Eight in ten clean energy projects never make it through development. Not because of bad ideas, but because of how the process is run: sequential, analog, and fragmented across consultants, spreadsheets, and months of waiting.

In this episode of Transmission, Alejandro speaks with Stuart Pomeroy from Paces .Stuart breaks down exactly why the traditional development model fails, what a parallel workflow looks like in practice, and how compressing land, environmental, interconnection, and permitting work into a single ecosystem can cut development timelines by more than half.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Alejandro De Diego - US Market Analyst

Battery revenues, nodal spreads, trading strategies, Ko answers your most business-critical questions instantly, powered by Modo's IOSCO-aligned benchmark data. Try Ko for free now→ https://modoenergy.com/sign-up

For more information on Paces,

Head to their website → https://www.paces.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pacesai/

Reach Stuart at [email protected]

0:00 Introduction: the hidden cost of delay in clean energy

3:18 How clients use Paces day-to-day

4:29 The data model: land, zoning, and interconnection layers

5:25 The old sequential development model

7:30 Cutting development time by 50%+

9:02 Does Paces replace environmental consultants?

11:05 Cost savings and pipeline conversion metrics

13:47 Assessing permitting risk and policy uncertainty

15:42 The Permitting Predictor tool

17:17 Predicting landowner behaviour

18:37 Hottest US regions for development activity

27:42 Community sentiment and opposition risk

31:22 Off-grid development and on-site generation

34:10 Cost, complexity, and time: the off-grid advantage

36:40 LMP data suite and revenue signals

37:40 Getting projects bankable: track record and case studies

39:31 What Paces are building next

41:23 Contrarian takes: off-grid and permitting

44:19 Closing