Finding
Batteries now earn their money from software timing, not grid services
In Texas, batteries used to be paid mainly to stand by for grid services: about 85% of ERCOT battery revenue came from ancillary services in 2023. As battery capacity flooded those markets, prices collapsed, and by June 2025 energy arbitrage - charging cheap and discharging into price spikes - made up 76% of revenue (Modo Energy). California batteries were at 91%. ERCOT battery revenue per MW hit a record low in 2025.
That makes the optimizer, not the battery, the source of returns. The same Megapack earns very different money depending on how its software forecasts prices, bids, and holds charge for the few hours that set the year: in earlier years the top 30 days produced 44-68% of annual ERCOT battery revenue. ERCOT's real-time co-optimization, live since December 2025, raises the premium on fast, automated bidding.
The same logic now runs inside fleets and sites. A truck depot schedules charging against vehicle routes, tariffs and battery state; a data center shifts load and dispatches storage against grid signals; a factory times heavy loads around demand charges. Orchestration is the software layer that decides when every electrified asset draws, stores or gives back power.
Layers
Where orchestration runs
| Layer | What it decides | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Market | Bidding into energy, ancillary and capacity markets | Tesla Autobidder, Fluence Mosaic, Wärtsilä GEMS, Gridmatic |
| Portfolio | Aggregating many sites into one dispatchable resource | VPP platforms: Tesla, Sunrun, Renew Home, Uplight, CPower |
| Site | Balancing solar, batteries, chargers and loads behind the meter | Microgrid controllers and EMS: Schneider, Siemens, Spirae |
| Fleet | Charging scheduled against routes, duty cycles and tariffs | Charge management systems; OCPP; fleet telematics |
| Device | Inverters, chargers and batteries that follow setpoints | IEEE 1547, IEEE 2030.5, OCPP |
Sources
Sources and scope
- Scope
- Software that schedules generation, storage and load across markets, portfolios, sites and fleets
- Sources
- Modo Energy ERCOT and CAISO benchmarks (2025-2026); ESS News
- Updated
- October 2026