Part One | Part Two | Part Three

Maureen Bray, Managing Director of Equity Energies and Centreco

For many organisations, solar isn’t a new concept. On-site generation using solar PV has become a familiar feature of the energy landscape, often associated with visible sustainability credentials and always with the promise of lower electricity costs.

Battery storage has been less widely deployed to date, but it’s now also moving rapidly up the agenda as the price of on-site electricity storage falls. 

Individually, both technologies have a clear use-case. That’s no longer the question. 

The real opportunity is not the viability of solar, storage or even procurement strategies on their own, but whether treating them as standalone decisions still makes sense in an energy ecosystem that is becoming more volatile, constrained and complex. 

We are at an inflection point, where integration is the word that matters most. 

The daily reality of the energy trilemma

For years, the energy trilemma of affordability, security and sustainability was discussed primarily at policy or market level. But today, it is felt much closer to home, at organisational level. 

Peak charges, non-wholesale costs, grid congestion, connection delays and price volatility are not distant market dynamics; they show up directly in operational risk, budget uncertainty and board-level conversations. 

At the same time, organisations are moving beyond first-wave decarbonisation (the early stage of Net Zero action, where organisations prioritised individual projects or commitments over system-wide energy design). These kinds of early projects often focused on doing something tangible like installing solar, switching to a green tariff, or simply committing to high-level targets. These steps mattered, but many initiatives would have been delivered as isolated projects and assessed narrowly on their individual business case or carbon impact. 

But that approach now leaves value on the table. The energy ecosystem is changing, and the way organisations engage with it needs to change too. 

Falling battery costs change the conversation

Perhaps the most crucial point is that battery storage has reached a different point in its maturity curve. Prices have come down significantly in recent years, while performance has improved, and alongside this, operational experience is growing. As a result, batter storage can now more easily be assessed as a proven asset. This shift matters greatly, because it fundamentally changes the role batteries can play. 

Historically, storage was often viewed primarily as a resilience back-up, or perhaps as something to revisit once technology costs fell further. In many cases, batteries were evaluated in isolation, and not in the context a clear operational strategy or linked to wider energy decisions. 

That’s about to change, dramatically, because when deployed intelligently batteries are not just about keeping the lights on; they are tools that enable better financial control, risk management and system flexibility. This value only becomes accessible when they are designed as part of a wider energy strategy rather than installed as an afterthought. 

The economics of stacking value 

Solar on its own generates low-cost electricity, but only during daylight hours. Without storage, surplus energy is either wasted (curtailed) or exported. But the latter only makes sense if the right export or supply structure is in place, so exported energy can achieve its potential value.

For many, electricity is at its most expensive during the working day, when demand across sites, systems and operations is highest. This is where solar creates immediate value, generating power on-site at the very point the organisation would otherwise be importing electricity at peak daytime rates. 

This alignment between generation and demand is one of solar’s most powerful commercial advantages. Rather than simply buying from the grid when costs are highest, organisations can use self-generated electricity to directly reduce imported volumes, bringing down both energy costs and exposure to market volatility. 

Introduce battery storage, and that value extends even further. Where solar output exceeds on-site demand, particularly around midday or during quieter operating periods, excess generation can be stored rather than exported. This creates the flexibility to use that power later, including during late afternoon and early evening peaks, typically between 4pm and 7pm, when wholesale prices and system charges can rise further. 

This is where integration rebalances the trilemma. Battery storage enables three practical value levers: 

1. Peak avoidance – This means discharging during late afternoon peaks to reduce exposure to high time-of-use rates and demand-based charges. 

2. Peak demand shaving – For organisations with peak demand profiles batteries can reduce grid dependency during their highest demand periods. This can reduce/avoid any excess capacity costs or reduce a sites’ maximum demand capacity which in turn can reduce standing charges (which are rising). 

3. Demand shaping – Flattening your demand profile to reduce peak exposure and supplier risk, which can strengthen procurement outcomes. 

For high-consumption sites, these are not marginal gains; they can materially alter the economics of the overall energy strategy. 

The core principle is simple: energy is most valuable when it is most expensive to buy, not when it is cheapest to generate. 

Moving isolated assets to an integrated system 

Individually, solar, storage and procurement decisions can appear rational, but thrust together, and they can become conflicted. 

Integration forces a different question: how should a site consume, generate, store and trade energy across a 24-hour cycle to minimise cost and risk? 

The tipping point is not technological, but economic and structural. The question is no longer whether storage works, but how much value is being left unmodelled when decisions are made in isolation. 

In part two, we explore where value is won or lost, and why tariff strategy is the commercial multiplier within an integrated system.