Transmission From 50 to 500MW: How to Manage Mega-Projects - EDF
Feb 26, 2026
Fabrizio Fenu, Head of Business Development at EDF for battery route-to-market, optimising a multi-gigawatt portfolio. He explains scaling batteries from small tests to 5GW, how trading desks and AI shape optimisation, differences between merchant, floor and tolling deals, plus why co-located solar and battery projects are trickier to finance.
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Bigger Projects Demand Revenue Certainty
- As projects scaled from 20–50 MW toward 100–500 MW, investors shifted from merchant risk to seeking revenue certainty via floors or tolling.
- Larger scale attracts infrastructure debt requiring guaranteed revenue profiles that route‑to‑market providers supply.
Floors Balance Certainty And Upside Better Than Tolls
- EDF prefers offering merchant and floor contracts over tolling today because floors let owners capture upside while providing downside protection.
- Tolling gives full certainty but sacrifices upside, so choice depends on investor risk appetite.
AI Helps Everywhere But Humans Stay In The Loop
- EDF integrates AI across forecasting, intraday re-optimization and pricing but keeps a human in the loop; fully autonomous algo trading is not yet trusted.
- Changing market structure and heterogeneous counterparties limit fully automated learning of buyer behaviour.