As industrial companies electrify, one solution increasingly dominates the energy conversation, that is battery storage. And for good reason. Battery energy storage systems can respond quickly to electricity prices, provide balancing services, reduce peak demand and help companies make better use of renewable electricity. As electricity markets become more volatile and grid capacity more constrained, batteries can be a powerful addition to an industrial energy system. But before asking ‘Which battery do we need?’, there is another question worth answering first: ‘How much flexibility do we already have?’ For many industrial sites, part of the answer may already be hidden inside existing processes, utilities and energy assets.
Your factory may already contain an energy buffer
Industrial electricity consumption is rarely as rigid as it appears on the electricity meter. A production process may need a certain amount of energy over the course of a day, but that does not always mean every kilowatt-hour has to be consumed at one exact moment. Consider cooling systems that can temporarily pre-cool, thermal processes with buffer capacity, pumps that can shift operation within certain time windows, CHP units whose dispatch can be optimized or heat pumps and electric boilers connected to thermal storage. Even production planning itself can create flexibility. The common factor is that there is often a difference between when energy is needed and when electricity needs to be consumed. That difference is flexibility. And unlike a newly installed battery, some of this flexibility may already be present in your operation today.
Flexibility is broader than battery storage
A battery is a very visible form of flexibility. Electricity goes in, electricity comes out, and its state of charge can be measured easily. Industrial flexibility is often less obvious. It can be distributed across different assets, energy vectors and processes. Thermal storage may effectively shift electricity consumption for several hours. A cooling installation can store energy indirectly in a product or cold buffer. A production batch might be moved to another moment without changing daily output.
The opportunity, therefore, is not necessarily to add flexibility immediately. It is to discover, quantify and orchestrate the flexibility that already exists.
Why start with flexibility before investing in storage?
Perhaps your goal is to avoid consumption peaks or to benefit from electricity price spreads. Maybe grid capacity is becoming a constraint on further electrification. Perhaps you want to participate in balancing markets or increase the value of on-site renewable production.
Different objectives require different combinations of flexibility. If existing processes can already cover part of that need, the required battery could potentially be smaller, operated differently or targeted at the moments where it creates the most additional value. In some cases, another flexible asset may even provide a better economic answer. Starting with the battery and looking for an application afterwards risks reversing that logic.
First understand the flexibility need. Then build the right flexibility portfolio around it.
The battery and the factory should not compete
There is another important reason to take a system-wide view. Once a battery is installed, it does not operate in isolation. Imagine electricity prices suddenly falling. Charging the battery could be attractive. But perhaps an electric boiler also wants to increase consumption at that moment. A production line might have been shifted to the same low-price period. Meanwhile, the site’s grid connection places a limit on total electricity consumption. Which asset gets priority?
Or consider the opposite situation when electricity prices rise sharply. Should the battery discharge? Should a flexible process temporarily reduce consumption? Should thermal storage be used first? And what if some of that flexibility has greater value in a balancing or congestion market?
Optimizing every asset individually does not necessarily optimise the industrial site as a whole. The real value emerges when production constraints, electricity prices, grid limits, energy demand and all available flexible assets are considered simultaneously.
From asset optimization to system optimisation
This is where digitalization and automated control become essential. Industrial energy systems are becoming increasingly complex. Companies are combining electricity generation, heat, storage, flexible processes and external energy markets. Manually deciding what every asset should do every fifteen minutes quickly becomes unrealistic.
The goal should therefore not simply be to control a battery. It should be to create an intelligent layer above the energy system that continuously determines where flexibility creates the most value at any given moment without compromising the industrial process.
At Entras, that is the principle behind our approach to industrial energy flexibility. Our optimization technology connects energy assets, operational constraints and market signals and evaluates them as one integrated system. Production remains the primary constraint; flexibility is used around it.
Storage remains an important part of the equation
‘Flexibility before storage’ does not mean ‘flexibility instead of storage’. Battery deployment is growing rapidly for good reasons. Battery systems provide exceptionally fast response and can unlock applications that many industrial processes cannot. The IEA describes batteries as one of the most versatile tools for short-term power-system flexibility, while also pointing to the growing importance of demand-side flexibility.
The strongest industrial energy strategy may therefore combine both. Existing process flexibility can absorb or shift energy where operationally possible. Thermal buffers can move energy across longer periods. Batteries can respond rapidly where electrical flexibility is required. Other assets can provide additional flexibility depending on their technical characteristics. What matters is how these resources work together.
Start with what you already have
As electrification accelerates, flexibility is becoming increasingly valuable. Electricity demand is growing, renewable generation is creating larger fluctuations in supply, and grid congestion is becoming a constraint in more regions. The IEA therefore expects demand-side flexibility to play a much larger role in future electricity systems.
For industrial companies, that creates an important opportunity. Before adding another asset to the site, map the ones that are already there.
- How flexible is your production planning?
- Where is thermal inertia available?
- Which utilities can change the consumption profile?
- Which technical constraints are truly fixed and which are flexible within boundaries?
- What would that flexibility have been worth under historical market conditions?
Only then can you accurately determine what is missing.
Before investing in storage, invest in understanding your flexibility. Because the cheapest flexible megawatt may be the one that was already inside your factory.
