The partnership
As one of Europe’s biggest energy companies, Uniper is a household name in the energy industry. As part of their commitment to innovation and their role in the energy transition – balancing demand and supply to support grid stability – they co-developed the M5BAT battery with ISEA RWTH Aachen to address the rising storage need that accompanies the renewable buildout. Through enspired’s advanced digital infrastructure, the asset became a focus project for modelling simultaneous participation in ancillary services and wholesales during the early days of cross-market battery optimization. After two years of quantitative testing in this virtual setting, enspired’s high-speed platform now executes the live optimization across these markets, for which Entelios provides ancillary services, ensuring the M5BAT battery contributes to grid stability through balancing services.
The customer
Düsseldorf-based Uniper is a European energy company with global reach and activities in more than 40 countries. With around 7,500 employees, the company makes an important contribution to security of supply in Europe, particularly in its core markets Germany, the UK, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Uniper’s operations include power generation in Europe, global energy trading, and a broad gas portfolio. Uniper aims to be carbon-neutral by 2040. To achieve this, the company is transforming its power plants and facilities and investing in flexible, dispatchable power generation units.
"Thanks to the collaboration with enspired and Entelios, we can capture opportunities across different revenue streams and maximize the impact of our innovation initiatives.”
Abel Cabezas Jiménez
Head of Innovation at Uniper
The use case
M5BAT is a 6 MW / 7.52 MWh standalone grid-scale battery located in Aachen, Germany. A distinguishing physical aspect of the project is hybridity. It integrates 5 different battery technologies, including advanced lead-acid and a range of lithium chemistries. The M5BAT battery storage system has been connected to the local medium-voltage grid since September 2016. The combination of several battery technologies into a single large storage system provides valuable insights into the sustainability of each individual type in different applications. Additionally, it collects crucial data to optimize the development and utilization of future storage technologies.
In the live optimization of the battery, Entelios is responsible for ancillary services, while enspired focuses on the wholesale component. In this cross-market setup, the asset can simultaneously leverage all revenue streams – FCR, aFRR energy, aFRR capacity, and wholesale. Additionally, it serves as a tool to validate the accuracy of the battery index developed by ISEA RWTH Aachen University and enspired. “The go-live of this project marked an exciting milestone – we are glad that we are now operational in a real market environment. Thanks to the collaboration with enspired and Entelios, we can capture opportunities across different revenue streams and maximize the impact of our innovation initiatives,” Uniper’s Head of Innovation Jose Abel Cabezas Jiménez says about the project.
The environmental edge
The market entry of the M5BAT enables the integration of more renewable capacity – both an important step in Uniper’s efforts to support the decarbonization of the energy sector and a meaningful win for the energy transition as a whole. “We are delighted to support Uniper in providing energy security with targeted ancillary service trading as more renewables are being fed into the system,” Clarissa Irion, Head of Business Development at Entelios, comments. “By integrating M5BAT into ancillary services, we are ensuring grid stability while demonstrating the crucial role of battery storage in the energy transition. This project proves how flexibility solutions can maximize renewable integration and drive decarbonization at scale.”
enspired CEO Jürgen Mayerhofer shares the sentiment: “Partnerships with industry giants like Uniper are highly influential. During the research phase of the M5BAT project, our algo implemented important learnings into the optimization strategy to future-proof it for market participation. By turning the huge theoretical profitability of grid-scale storage into real-life results, we actively push other players to put a stronger focus on BESS integration and decarbonization efforts.”
"Partnerships with industry giants like Uniper are highly influential. During the research phase of the M5BAT project, our algo implemented important learnings into the optimization strategy to future-proof it for market participation.”
Jürgen Mayerhofer
CEO & Co-founder of enspired