Another edition of our BESS Industry Buzz, this week looking at new details on CATL’s sodium-ion technology, BESS availability, BAAJA trade-offs and the price of speed to power.
Kubik on CATL’s sodium-ion specs
CATL has released more details on its sodium-ion BESS product in recent webinars. Ex-Fluence exec Marek Kubik yesterday posted the details and his analysis of it. We may well write a piece on it in the coming days but, for now, see the post and the ensuing discussion here.
22 days of paid vacation for your BESS?
That’s effectively what is happening in some cases due to inaccurate availability reporting, said Dr. Kai-Philipp Kairies, CEO of analytics firm Accure Battery Intelligence. The firm has published a report on the topic recently, see his post here.
The US$52/MWh price of speed to power
CEO and co-founder of renewables project consultant business K2 Renew, Richard Krauze, wrote that Macquarie Asset Management’s latest market note on US development bottlenecks puts a hard number on something developers have long felt but rarely quantified: in PJM North Illinois, the most congested data centre market in the country, corporate PPAs now price US$38-per-MWh above the 2027–2041 forward curve, while in ERCOT West Hub, where supply connects faster, PPAs sit US$14-per-MWh below it, a US$52-per-MWh spread on the same commodity, driven almost entirely by how quickly a buyer can get on the grid. See his post here.
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Discussion on BAAJA trade-offs
Alex Bomstein, executive director at The Clean Air Council, an environmental non-profit organisation in existence since 1967, prior to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), urged constituents to call on their representatives to oppose the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA). BAAJA could speed up permitting and approvals for energy and infrastructure projects.
“BAAJA is a bad compromise that gives us a chance at some modest gains in the growth of renewable energy for durable and devastating damage to our bedrock environmental laws, as well as expansion of fossil fuels,” Bomstein wrote, see his post here.
The missing data behind BESS’s new dual duty at data centres
Ron DiFelice, CEO and co-founder of BESS developer EIP Storage, said energy storage is becoming a compliance requirement as utilities tighten data-centre power rules. Yet no independently verified long-duration data show that one LFP battery can both shape loads and withstand grid disturbances—with demands rising under ERCOT’s NOGRR282, MISO’s developing criteria, and PJM’s proposed standards after July’s major load-disconnection event.
A 2026 IEEE Access study by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found grid-forming storage can reduce AI-compute power oscillations, but did not assess battery chemistry or degradation. A 2025 Frontiers in Energy Research study found that peak shaving caused about 1.81 times as much battery ageing as frequency regulation over 16 months, but did not account for the duty profiles. Read his post here.
‘Consolidation in residential energy can make a lot of sense’
German utility MVV is acquiring Enerix, a residential solar and battery installer. This makes sense in the context of the broader need to provide integrated holistic solutions, explains advisor Florian Mayr. It comes a few weeks after Germany home battery pioneer Sonnen filed for insolvency. See Mayr’s post here.
An interesting weekend in South Australia
Advisor Geoff Eldridge posted two days ago about the electricity market dynamics over last week (7-8 November) in the South Australia electricity market. Rooftop PV exceeded 100% of regional electricity consumption on both days and batteries had a role to play. See his post here.
