BESS-SIM: A Battery Storage Simulator for Providing Ancillary Services
Maintaining a stable electrical grid is becoming one of the most discussed topics in the energy sector as the share of renewable energy sources continues to grow. To tame these complexities, simulation and advanced modelling techniques are a necessity.
In collaboration with ENERGIQUBE and as part of the Hopero project, we’ve developed a free-to-use, online battery storage simulator. This tool allows energy experts and enthusiasts to test and evaluate the ability of batteries to simultaneously provide ancillary services and recharge from the intraday market in Slovakia.
Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are critical for modern grids, but their economic and technical viability depends on how they’re managed. Operators face a difficult challenge: they must provide automatic frequency restoration reserve (aFRR) 24/7, while keeping the battery’s State of Charge (SoC) healthy and the business model profitable. If that’s not enough, the intraday market can occasionally experience outages. For a standalone battery that can’t generate its own electricity, a wrongly timed market outage combined with an FRR obligation poses a critical operational risk. Our simulator allows operators to stress-test these scenarios in a controlled environment before exposure to real market conditions.
We built this tool in Python and brought it to life using Streamlit, turning code into an interactive sandbox. It uses historical market data from Slovakia’s market operator (OKTE) and the European PICASSO project. Key features include:
- Custom BESS Profiles: Plug in your own parameters for date ranges and battery specifications.
- Liquidity Check: Analyse intraday market liquidity using preselected filters.
- Outages Integration: See when the Slovak intraday market outages impact you.
- SoC Tracking: Watch your battery’s SoC fluctuate in a simulation.
The simulator serves as a bridge between cumbersome programming and practical market application. Instead of getting lost in lines of code, you can quickly validate new BESS setups. The tool demonstrates how decentralised storage can be reliably integrated into the Slovak grid, while analysing its stability.
The simulator is available online for testing and evaluation. We invite you to jump in!