Is the Battery Storage Gold Rush Really Over? - Enfinity Global

Apr 7, 2026

Sam Harden, Global Director at Enfinity Global, is a battery storage and BESS optimisation expert. He explains why toll contracts can shift rather than remove risk and how availability penalties bite. They unpack Italy’s MACSE 15-year auction and why the market is maturing into an asset class. He outlines futureproofing site design, grid services like inertia, and why skilled people are the real bottleneck.

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INSIGHT

Tolls Redistribute Risk Not Remove It

Tolls reallocate risk instead of removing it, shifting exposure from market revenue to operational availability penalties.
Sam Harden warns availability shortfalls under long tolls can trigger penalties larger than lost merchant revenues, increasing operational risk.

INSIGHT

Long MACSE Contracts Favoured Incumbents

Italy's MACSE auction offered 15-year fixed revenues where the TSO issues dispatch and owners must ensure availability.
Sam notes incumbent utilities won most slots because the contract favours entities able to guarantee long-term availability.

INSIGHT

Gold Rush Ended, Market Is Maturing

The early battery gold rush for ancillary payments is waning; markets are maturing into an asset class requiring operational excellence.
Sam says returns that once paid back projects in 3–4 years are gone; success now requires scale, contracts, and perfect daily performance.

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The battery storage gold rush is over in most major markets. What's replaced it is more complex, more competitive, and if you're not careful with your contracts - potentially more exposed than the merchant era ever was. It is often thought that offtake deals like tolls de-risk a battery project, but that might be one of the biggest misconceptions in BESS right now.

The market is maturing fast, but the players who thrive won't be the ones who got in first - they'll be the ones who understood the complexity earliest.

Sam Harden is Global Director at Enfinity Global, joins Ed to challenge conventional thinking on BESS contracts, market maturity, and what it actually takes to build and operate storage assets at scale.

They cover:

- Why BESS tolls redistribute risk rather than remove it and how availability penalties can cost you more than lost merchant revenue.

- The MACSE auction in Italy: what 15-year fixed-revenue contracts mean for asset owners, and why the incumbent utility won the majority of the first round.

- Whether the battery storage gold rush is truly over and why the market is maturing into an asset class, not saturating.

- How Enfinity Global is futureproofing project design for duration augmentation, grid-forming inverters, and services like inertia and voltage control.

- Why the biggest bottleneck to Europe's 50GW battery buildout isn't technology or capital - it's qualified people.

Want to track BESS revenues, tolling structures, and market dynamics across Europe and beyond? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Free sign up: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=sam_harden

Transcript available here: https://modoenergy.com/transmission-podcast/3f4cebb7-8b40-4ffb-80dd-717002c5747d

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⏱ CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

0:50 Are tolls a silver bullet for BESS risk management?

5:15 Italy's MACSE auction explained

6:05 Is the battery gold rush over?

10:30 From scarcity trade to operational excellence

13:00 Battery storage as a maturing asset class — good or bad?

16:40 How to develop BESS sites for the future

19:38 Battery augmentation and energy density gains

21:28 Will the battery sector consolidate?

25:13 How to position for above-infrastructure returns

26:25 Operational risk: what spreadsheets can't capture

28:00 Warranties vs. real-world asset management

30:13 Supply chain and talent: the hidden bottleneck

33:12 One change to accelerate European battery rollout

34:49 Wrap-up

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You 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.