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Transmission is the podcast for energy professionals navigating the global shift to a low-carbon power system. Hosted by Ed Porter, Transmission goes deep on battery storage markets, power market dynamics, and the commercial forces shaping the energy transition - with the people at the centre of it.
Every week, we sit down with the CEOs, heads of trading desks, government advisors, policy architects, and leading practitioners driving change across the industry.
These are practitioner conversations - focused on how markets actually work, where the real opportunities and risks lie, and what the data is telling us.
We cover clean energy investing, capacity markets, balancing mechanism participation, and the evolving regulatory environment that shapes returns across geographies. Our coverage spans Great Britain, Germany, Spain, and the broader European energy transition, with regular episodes dedicated to the specific dynamics of each market.
Transmission tracks the inflection points that matter: when markets shift, where capital is flowing, and what experienced operators are doing next.
We also cover power markets more broadly - interconnectors, flexibility markets, grid infrastructure, and the trading strategies that sophisticated players use to extract value in increasingly complex systems.
Who listens: Transmission is built for people who work in energy - analysts, investors, developers, traders, asset managers, and policy professionals at every stage of their careers.
If you're entering the industry or building your understanding of how battery storage and power markets actually work, Transmission is one of the fastest ways to get up to speed - directly from the people shaping them.
About Modo Energy: Transmission is produced by Modo Energy, a B2B SaaS platform that helps renewable energy companies, funds, utilities, and banks manage and value their energy assets. Specializing in batteries and provides data, analytics, and forecasting to help customers understand the financial performance of their energy assets.
The Modo Energy Terminal is the one-stop shop for teams trying to understand the commercial case for grid-scale battery energy storage - bringing together trusted indices, customizable benchmarks, independent revenue forecasts, in-depth written analysis, and much more.
Guided by the principles of transparency and usability, Modo Energy’s Terminal provides owners, operators, developers and financiers with a complete view of the landscape for storage - past, present, and future - so that users can make informed, bankable decisions about their assets.
Hundreds of organizations rely on Modo’s tools and insights to navigate market trends, optimize investment strategies, and stay ahead of industry shifts. As the storage space continues to evolve, Modo is leading the way - helping businesses unlock the full value of their assets and make smarter decisions in a net-zero future.
Follow Transmission to get new episodes every Tuesday.
If you find the show valuable, leaving a rating takes 30 seconds and makes a real difference in helping other energy professionals find us.
Every week, we sit down with the CEOs, heads of trading desks, government advisors, policy architects, and leading practitioners driving change across the industry.
These are practitioner conversations - focused on how markets actually work, where the real opportunities and risks lie, and what the data is telling us.
We cover clean energy investing, capacity markets, balancing mechanism participation, and the evolving regulatory environment that shapes returns across geographies. Our coverage spans Great Britain, Germany, Spain, and the broader European energy transition, with regular episodes dedicated to the specific dynamics of each market.
Transmission tracks the inflection points that matter: when markets shift, where capital is flowing, and what experienced operators are doing next.
We also cover power markets more broadly - interconnectors, flexibility markets, grid infrastructure, and the trading strategies that sophisticated players use to extract value in increasingly complex systems.
Who listens: Transmission is built for people who work in energy - analysts, investors, developers, traders, asset managers, and policy professionals at every stage of their careers.
If you're entering the industry or building your understanding of how battery storage and power markets actually work, Transmission is one of the fastest ways to get up to speed - directly from the people shaping them.
About Modo Energy: Transmission is produced by Modo Energy, a B2B SaaS platform that helps renewable energy companies, funds, utilities, and banks manage and value their energy assets. Specializing in batteries and provides data, analytics, and forecasting to help customers understand the financial performance of their energy assets.
The Modo Energy Terminal is the one-stop shop for teams trying to understand the commercial case for grid-scale battery energy storage - bringing together trusted indices, customizable benchmarks, independent revenue forecasts, in-depth written analysis, and much more.
Guided by the principles of transparency and usability, Modo Energy’s Terminal provides owners, operators, developers and financiers with a complete view of the landscape for storage - past, present, and future - so that users can make informed, bankable decisions about their assets.
Hundreds of organizations rely on Modo’s tools and insights to navigate market trends, optimize investment strategies, and stay ahead of industry shifts. As the storage space continues to evolve, Modo is leading the way - helping businesses unlock the full value of their assets and make smarter decisions in a net-zero future.
Follow Transmission to get new episodes every Tuesday.
If you find the show valuable, leaving a rating takes 30 seconds and makes a real difference in helping other energy professionals find us.
418 Episodes
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What if a battery storage project could lock in its revenue before it's earned it? SSE and Statkraft have done just that with a battery revenue swap: SSE gave up the ups and downs of battery income for a fixed price, Statkraft took them on, and both energy companies came out with less risk.On this episode of Transmission, Ed Porter is joined by Josh Brown, Origination Team Manager at SSE, and Cian O'Duffy, Energy Markets Quantitative Analyst at Statkraft, two people behind the deal, to explain how energy trading deals like this work and who could do one next.They cover:- How a battery revenue swap is set up, and why it needs far less paperwork than a wind farm PPA.- Whether a swap changes how you run your battery, and what basis risk means for owners.- How wind farms, solar farms and energy suppliers could use battery revenues to manage risk.- Why big businesses might buy a virtual battery instead of building their own.- What's next for battery storage deals, plus two contrarian views on CfDs and battery revenues.Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, about battery revenues, power prices, wind, solar and data centres: Try for freeTranscript available hereYou 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.Chapters:00:00 What is a battery revenue swap?01:11 How energy trading deals get set up03:07 Why SSE sold its battery revenue risk05:11 Why Statkraft wanted more battery risk06:27 How big the SSE and Statkraft deal is07:40 How swap contracts work (ISDA explained)10:39 Does a swap change how you run your battery?12:35 UK-wide vs regional battery indices13:55 Can wind and solar farms hedge with batteries?17:26 Battery revenues vs other ways to hedge20:27 Virtual batteries for big energy users24:30 What comes after swaps? Options and floors28:46 How CfDs affect negative electricity prices31:02 Why battery revenues could be a rocky ride33:26 Wrap-up
What if a battery storage project could lock in its revenue before it's earned it? SSE and Statkraft have done just that with a battery revenue swap: SSE gave up the ups and downs of battery income for a fixed price, Statkraft took them on, and both energy companies came out with less risk.On this episode of Transmission, Ed Porter is joined by Josh Brown, Origination Team Manager at SSE, and Cian O'Duffy, Energy Markets Quantitative Analyst at Statkraft, two people behind the deal, to explain how energy trading deals like this work and who could do one next.They cover:- How a battery revenue swap is set up, and why it needs far less paperwork than a wind farm PPA.- Whether a swap changes how you run your battery, and what basis risk means for owners.- How wind farms, solar farms and energy suppliers could use battery revenues to manage risk.- Why big businesses might buy a virtual battery instead of building their own.- What's next for battery storage deals, plus two contrarian views on CfDs and battery revenues.Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, about battery revenues, power prices, wind, solar and data centres: Try for freeTranscript available hereYou 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.Chapters:00:00 What is a battery revenue swap?01:11 How energy trading deals get set up03:07 Why SSE sold its battery revenue risk05:11 Why Statkraft wanted more battery risk06:27 How big the SSE and Statkraft deal is07:40 How swap contracts work (ISDA explained)10:39 Does a swap change how you run your battery?12:35 UK-wide vs regional battery indices13:55 Can wind and solar farms hedge with batteries?17:26 Battery revenues vs other ways to hedge20:27 Virtual batteries for big energy users24:30 What comes after swaps? Options and floors28:46 How CfDs affect negative electricity prices31:02 Why battery revenues could be a rocky ride33:26 Wrap-up
Battery storage in Germany has a grid connection problem: far more projects want to connect than the grid can take, so Germany has scrapped first come, first served and moved to a maturity-based allocation scheme that rewards projects that are ready to build. But for 50Hertz and Germany's other transmission system operators, connecting BESS is only half the challenge. Merchant batteries could push grid congestion costs and grid fees up, or bring them down.Wilhelm Kiewitt, Head of Energy Economics at 50Hertz, one of Germany's four transmission system operators, joins Ed Porter to explain how a grid operator sees the battery boom from the inside.They cover:Why Germany scrapped first come, first served for grid connections, and how the new maturity-based scheme scores projects on land, permits and finance instead of speed.How 50Hertz went from a handful of transmission connection requests a year to more than 100, and why even the 14GW of batteries already holding grid reservations may not all get built.Should batteries pay more towards wider grid upgrades? Why Wilhelm says no, and why data centres are a different case.Dynamic grid fees or smaller bidding zones? Where Wilhelm and Ed disagree on the cleanest way to send batteries to where the grid needs them.Could merchant batteries cut Germany's roughly 4 billion euros a year in congestion management costs, or push them up?Building in Germany? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, what a battery earns there today, how it compares with wind and solar, and where power prices are heading. Try for free.Transcript available hereThemen: Batteriespeicher, Netzanschluss, Reifegradverfahren, Netzentgelte, Engpassmanagement, 50Hertz
Battery storage in Germany has a grid connection problem: far more projects want to connect than the grid can take, so Germany has scrapped first come, first served and moved to a maturity-based allocation scheme that rewards projects that are ready to build. But for 50Hertz and Germany's other transmission system operators, connecting BESS is only half the challenge. Merchant batteries could push grid congestion costs and grid fees up, or bring them down.Wilhelm Kiewitt, Head of Energy Economics at 50Hertz, one of Germany's four transmission system operators, joins Ed Porter to explain how a grid operator sees the battery boom from the inside.They cover:Why Germany scrapped first come, first served for grid connections, and how the new maturity-based scheme scores projects on land, permits and finance instead of speed.How 50Hertz went from a handful of transmission connection requests a year to more than 100, and why even the 14GW of batteries already holding grid reservations may not all get built.Should batteries pay more towards wider grid upgrades? Why Wilhelm says no, and why data centres are a different case.Dynamic grid fees or smaller bidding zones? Where Wilhelm and Ed disagree on the cleanest way to send batteries to where the grid needs them.Could merchant batteries cut Germany's roughly 4 billion euros a year in congestion management costs, or push them up?Building in Germany? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, what a battery earns there today, how it compares with wind and solar, and where power prices are heading. Try for free.Transcript available hereThemen: Batteriespeicher, Netzanschluss, Reifegradverfahren, Netzentgelte, Engpassmanagement, 50Hertz
Battery storage investment in Europe now depends less on whether the revenue exists and more on how it gets financed. With Italy's first MACSE auction won largely by a single player while Germany's fully merchant market is pushing lenders towards shorter, tighter debt, investors have to work out what makes a battery project bankable without a long-term contract.Grace Kankindi, Deputy Head of Investment Management at Aquila Clean Energy, joins Ed Porter to walk through how she assesses battery investments across multiple European markets.They cover:- Why the first MACSE auction worked as designed, even though prices cleared low and one bidder took most of the contracts, and what new anti-concentration rules could change in round two.- What happens to Italian battery projects that miss out on MACSE, from tolling to the capacity market, and why Italian lenders still won't back fully merchant projects.- How lenders are financing merchant batteries in Germany, with debt terms of around 3 to 7 years instead of 15 to 20, and cash sweeps to pay debt down faster.- The risk investors most often underprice, the optimiser, and why the lowest profit share isn't always the cheapest deal as German two-hour battery revenues fall.- Why timing decides returns in smaller markets like Lithuania and Finland, why Poland is next on Grace's radar, and why she thinks contracted revenue is riskier than it looks.Want to stress-test how a German battery's revenues hold up as saturation sets in? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Transcript available hereChapters0:00 Intro1:22 MACSE Auction Results and What People Got Wrong2:38 Italy Battery Storage Investment Beyond MACSE5:18 MACSE vs Merchant by Italian Price Zone6:29 Battery Revenue Strategies Without a MACSE Contract10:05 Battery Project Finance: MACSE, Tolling and Merchant12:12 Second MACSE Auction and Anti-Concentration Rules13:58 Merchant Battery Financing in Germany16:14 What Lenders Want From a Merchant BESS Project18:38 German Battery Revenue Saturation20:27 Battery Optimiser Risk and Profit Share23:12 Dynamic Grid Fees in Germany25:25 Diversifying a Battery Portfolio Across 12 Markets28:13 Lithuania and Finland Battery Storage Markets30:13 Where to Invest Next: Poland31:12 Best Performing Battery Assets in 10 Years33:46 The Hidden Risk in Contracted Battery Revenue
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