Podcast highlights

Cheap batteries are starting to change the economics of EV charging infrastructure.

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October 26, 2026 bess, charge point, charge point podcast, co-located batteries



🎙️ In Episode 54 of the 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐏𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭, Christophe speaks with Ryan Fisher from BloombergNEF about how co-located Battery Energy Storage Systems are helping fast-charging sites scale in a grid-constrained world.

BloombergNEF's report tracked around 800 real-world projects where batteries are already being used with EV charging infrastructure - showing that co-located BESS is no longer just a pilot topic, but an emerging infrastructure trend.

For CPOs, the opportunity is not just to install a battery next to a charger.

The real opportunity is BESS value stacking.
A co-located battery can help:
- reduce peak-demand charges
- avoid or delay costly grid upgrades
- boost charging power on constrained connections
- optimise energy costs through tariff arbitrage
- unlock future revenue from flexibility and ancillary services

But none of this happens automatically.
To turn BESS into a real business case, charging sites need intelligent control, charger and battery integration, and a clear strategy for how each value stream is prioritised.

That is exactly where our work is focused: helping CPOs connect, control and optimise co-located batteries as part of the energy layer behind fast-charging infrastructure.

Listen to the full episode to hear the BloombergNEF perspective on BESS, grid constraints, truck charging, megawatt charging and the future charging business case - on the platform of your choice 🎧

You can read more about BloombergNEF's report here: https://lnkd.in/eF3Sx2aQ

So could maybe cheap batteries change where charging signs can be built? How do you see that? 100%. If you can get the cheap batteries, because either the cost is coming down in the market as a whole, there's obviously more people coming. And therefore, with scale, we as BNF do loads of battery surveys and the price is coming down due to that learning rate. But in some cases as well, you can get the subsidies for this. So in the Netherlands, they have programs where you get subsidies to put chargers in, particularly now around their kind of rollout of commercial electric vehicles. They've got quite a lot of legislation there for that. You will get something like 80 euros per kilowatt hour for storage with the chargers. In the US, they've got rid of tax credits for charging infrastructure. I think it ends at the end of June. But the tax credits for battery storage still live on. In the UK, they've got this depot charging scheme. I'm pretty sure you can get battery storage with that. So even if the price of the batteries isn't going down, you may get a grant for them, which then also means that, well, okay, well, I'll use the grants where I can get them. Even if the economics didn't originally stack up, they may well after the grant. Yeah.