{"id":66454,"date":"2026-08-04T10:25:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T10:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/66454\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T10:25:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T10:25:23","slug":"fluence-maps-the-battery-storage-opportunity-for-data-centres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/66454\/","title":{"rendered":"Fluence maps the battery storage opportunity for data centres"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council (ECMC) subsequently backed a nationally consistent framework at its 28 July meeting, with Queensland and the Northern Territory the only jurisdictions to oppose the approach<\/a>. AEMO has separately lodged a rule change request addressing grid-supportive behaviour within the operational timeframe, covering fault ride-through, ramping and related requirements.<\/p>\n

All of that policy activity is running in parallel, and both Markham and Monday are alert to the risk of those streams pulling in different directions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got the National Electricity Market (NEM) implementation now. We\u2019ve got new directives coming from ECMC, and it\u2019s at risk of creating a really complicated patchwork for what is ultimately a government commitment to decarbonise by a certain date,\u201d Markham says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a clearly defined, simple policy, and then if hyperscalers genuinely need 24\/7 clean power, that will come through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monday frames the stakes plainly. \u201cIf we don\u2019t solve it, data centres are going to look elsewhere. It is a rich opportunity for industry and policymakers to come together and figure out what the solution looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three use cases, one asset<\/p>\n

The starting point for Fluence\u2019s position is a taxonomy of what battery energy storage systems are actually being asked to do in a data centre context. Monday breaks the storage opportunity into three distinct use cases, each commercially independent but potentially more powerful when addressed together.<\/p>\n

The first is load smoothing. Modern data centres, particularly those running AI workloads, draw power in highly variable ways that are difficult for grid operators to manage in real time.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can put a Fluence SmartStack<\/a> at the centre of your power architecture delivery system, and it can act as basically a shock absorber between the data centre and whatever the generation asset is,\u201d Monday says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can really power smooth both ways and stabilise that variable data centre load in a really unique and interesting way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second is cold-start backup, replacing diesel generators to help hyperscalers meet the carbon-neutral commitments they made before the current surge in AI-driven demand created tension between their decarbonisation goals and their power requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the hyperscalers came out with carbon-neutral goals before this AI surge. So now they\u2019re in this interesting place where they\u2019re still needing to meet their carbon neutral goals while also bringing on a lot more power consumption,\u201d Monday says.<\/p>\n

The third, and the one Monday describes as potentially the largest commercial application for Fluence\u2019s SmartStack product globally, is speed-to-power.<\/p>\n

In the US, where interconnection queues can stretch to three years or more, the cost of sitting with a fully fitted data centre that cannot connect to the grid is material.<\/p>\n

Monday puts a number on it: a 100MW data centre filled with GPUs but waiting for a grid connection loses approximately US$100 million in revenue per month. By co-locating battery storage systems and using them as peak-shaving assets to reduce the firm power commitment required of the grid operator, Fluence has found it can compress a three-year interconnection wait to fifteen months.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor one of those data centres, it\u2019s US$1.5 billion we\u2019re going to help generate in extra revenue,\u201d Monday says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t really found the upper limit or the law of diminishing returns of that being applied to accelerate the speed to power use case. I\u2019m not sure we will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Markham translates the argument into the Australian context, where the constraint takes a different form but has a similar effect.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have interconnection queues in the same way, but for Sydney, we\u2019re just out of transmission infrastructure right now, and the Sydney Ring isn\u2019t built until 2032 or 2033, and that\u2019s just too long.\u201d<\/p>\n

The firm power commitment model still applies. \u201cYou can get more out of your existing transmission infrastructure by using a data centre to do that peak shaving,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Fluence\u2019s SmartStack has already been integrated into Siemens and NVIDIA\u2019s AI data centre reference architecture<\/a>, positioning the product at the infrastructure planning layer rather than as a retrofit, and signalling that the technology is already being treated as a core component by some of the largest players in the data centre supply chain.<\/p>\n

What connects all three use cases is the way Monday describes what happens when battery storage is placed between the data centre and the grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cBatteries are unique. They can act as both a transmission and a generation asset,\u201d he says. \u201cThat agility allows us to address the key needs of the data centre while also protecting consumers through the grid resiliency that we\u2019re driving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fluence describes this internally as the \u2018ratepayer shield\u2019: the idea that a battery storage system, co-located with a large load, acts as a buffer that insulates the broader grid, and by extension, everyday consumers, from the stress that a large, variable new load would otherwise impose.<\/p>\n

Markham extends the argument into ancillary services markets. If data centres provide grid-supportive behaviour under clearly defined operational requirements, she says, AEMO would have a clearer real-time view of how demand is changing, which could reduce the volume of regulation frequency control ancillary services the market operator needs to hold in reserve.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just one market and one example, but it has so many downstream consequences,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Data centre developer AirTrunk made a related argument at the same summit<\/a> the day before, framing data centres as potential anchor tenants for new renewable energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The AEMC has separately proposed new technical standards requiring large data centres to remain connected during grid faults<\/a> rather than tripping offline, following international incidents in which simultaneous disconnections caused cascading blackouts. The draft standards apply to facilities with loads of 30MW or more.<\/p>\n

Firmed renewables, not just renewables<\/p>\n

On the net-generator requirement, Markham is broadly supportive of the policy direction but precise about the risk of getting the details wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really concerned about making sure that any requirements are focusing on firmed renewables, not just renewables in isolation,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo accelerate our renewables transition, you need to have a scheme that brings on firmed renewables, not just renewables.\u201d<\/p>\n

The distinction matters commercially. A data centre that procures renewable energy certificates from existing solar PV power plants, for example, may technically meet a renewability requirement while adding no new generation capacity to the grid and doing nothing to firm the renewable energy it consumes.<\/p>\n

Monday picks up the same thread from a different angle, pointing to curtailment already present in the Australian grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of unused electrons sitting in the Australian grid in the form of curtailed energy. Battery storage is a great way to absorb those electrons and reapply them into the data centre,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where policymakers and industry need to come together to put those curtailed electrons to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

On battery storage system duration, Monday\u2019s view is that the requirement will increase over time, but that the right way to think about the investment is over a ten-year arc.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe duration of the battery is going to push from two to four hours as we progress, to a use case stacking that would require a longer duration,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The power smoothing use case is likely to diminish as chip architecture and software improve, freeing up battery capacity that can then be traded back into the grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think about your Internal Rate of Return (IRR) model over a ten-year arc and apply excess capacity being traded back in, it has dramatic impacts on your return model and could change the way that you should be thinking about the build of batteries today to set yourself up for success for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Markham\u2019s closing position is a call for coherence rather than a specific policy outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a fracturing already happening, looking at connections as discrete from operations, discrete from the bring your own renewables requirement, and they are all interrelated,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want a nationally consistent, whole-of-grid approach, because that is what is going to allow us to move quickly and give data centres and hyperscalers the confidence to commit capital in Australia rather than somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s answer pointed in the same direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main opportunity for data centres is to continue to look at batteries as an agile asset that can solve three discrete use cases through a single application. Right now, it is still only being contemplated on a use-case-by-use-case basis. By putting battery energy storage at the centre of it, it gives you a flexible capacity that allows you to address the key concerns that data centre customers need to solve most.\u201d<\/p>\n

Never miss an Australian energy storage story.\u00a0Sign up for our\u00a0Australia newsletter<\/a>\u00a0and get the latest project announcements, policy updates and market analysis delivered directly to you.<\/p>\n

Solar Media (part of Informa Group) will host the\u00a0Battery Asset Management Summit Australia 2026<\/a>\u00a0on 25-26 August at the Amora Hotel Jamison in Sydney, bringing together asset owners, operators, trading teams and optimisers to address revenue strategy, lifecycle management and operational performance across Australia\u2019s fast-growing battery storage fleet.<\/p>\n

Readers of Energy-Storage.news can get 20% off their tickets using the code ESN20 at checkout. Find out more about the Summit on the\u00a0official website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council (ECMC) subsequently backed a nationally consistent framework at its 28 July…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21002],"tags":[418,5398,5401,2828,20459,50052,50053,50054,29282,17987,6487,6150,50055,43],"class_list":["post-66454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-siemens","tag-australia","tag-battery","tag-bess","tag-data","tag-data-centres","tag-energystorageaus","tag-fluence","tag-nem","tag-new-south-wales","tag-policy","tag-siemens","tag-storage","tag-storageaus","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}