Now it will be possible to make money on your home battery by selling ancillary services to the electricity grid while using it for the property’s own energy needs. Svenska kraftnät has approved Ferroamp and Ntricity’s unique technical solution for the FCR-D support service in Sweden.

“Being able to make money by supporting the electricity grid while being able to navigate between power peaks and get more out of your solar production makes the battery business profitable for more people. This, in turn, provides a more flexible, and thus a more robust, electricity grid,” says Kent Jonsson, CEO of Ferroamp. 

In the past, battery owners have been forced to choose between selling ancillary services and using the battery for the needs of the property. Ferroamp and Ntricity’s technical solution is the first to be approved by Svenska kraftnät, where ancillary services can be sold at the same time as the battery is used to, for example, shave power peaks or increase self-consumption of solar energy.

By selling ancillary services for balancing the electricity grid, households that own a battery for energy storage can earn money by supporting the electricity grid. It is Svenska kraftnät that purchases the services to keep the frequency in the electricity grid in balance. Electricity customers can thus be paid to quickly increase or decrease their electricity use or production on command.

The service in question is called FCR-D (Frequency Containment Reserve Disturbance) and involves making capacity available that can be used in the event of a sudden disturbance in the electricity grid.

Varberg Energi will be the first to offer its customers the opportunity to use the Ferroamp system for ancillary services to the electricity grid. The software company Ntricity brings together several smaller Ferroamp systems with batteries that they can control centrally, a so-called virtual power plant. Varberg Energi, in turn, sells the capacity to Svenska kraftnät or local flexibility markets.

“We strongly believe in ‘open flexibility’, i.e. that the customer should be able to use the battery both in their own property and also have the opportunity to bid out battery capacity to local and national flex markets in order to optimise all the revenue that a battery can bring,” says Björn Sjöström, CEO of Varberg Energi.