BESS Peak Shaving Planning
Peak shaving is the industrial storage duty with the clearest arithmetic: a site pays heavily for its highest demand, so a battery that discharges into the peak and recharges in the valley can reduce both demand charges and peak-period energy costs. The documented cabinet model in this catalogue is presented for peak shaving and solar integration duties, and this guide covers the planning questions that duty raises.
Planning steps
- Read the demand profile first: a month of interval data if the site has it, or the pattern of a typical production week if it does not
- Locate the peak: when it happens, how long it lasts, and which equipment creates it
- Set the shaving target in plain terms: the level above which the battery should carry the site
- Check the valley: the battery needs hours to recharge, so confirm the low-demand window is long enough
- Decide the solar interaction: whether midday solar production charges the battery or serves the load directly
The common planning mistake is shaving to the meter rather than to the tariff. Demand charges, time-of-use prices and export rules differ by market, so the target should be set from your own bill structure, and the cabinet sized to that target rather than to the largest peak the site has ever recorded.
Bring the profile and the tariff pages to the enquiry. With those two documents, a cabinet discussion can move quickly from duty to configuration.