Podcast highlights

Why Grid Congestion Makes Battery Storage Essential for CPOs | Podcast#56 Highlight

2 views
September 28, 2026 bess, charge point podcast, energy management, ev charging

The grid connection a CPO asks for is rarely the one it gets. Even five to ten 100 kW chargers can outgrow it.

In Episode 56 of the ChargePoint Podcast, Christophe Lephilibert talks with Michel Verschuere, founder of Yuso, a Belgian balance service provider managing around 500 MW of large-scale battery storage across Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK and the Baltics.

They discuss why charging sites with co-located batteries are becoming energy market assets, why classic ancillary services like FCR and aFRR clash with a CPO's need for kilowatts, and how an EMS, a BSP and a BESS maker work together on a live Q8 Electric site.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• Why grid congestion, not charger hardware cost, is the real reason co-located BESS is becoming essential for CPOs, and why grid reinforcement timelines make batteries the faster path to more usable capacity
• What the "duck curve" is, why growing solar penetration is turning it into a "canyon curve" in markets like California, and what that means for when a CPO's battery should charge and discharge
• Why classic ancillary services like FCR and aFRR are often a poor fit for CPO sites specifically — they're contracted directly with transmission system operators (TSOs) and priced in kilowatts, the exact resource a charging site can least afford to commit away from serving drivers
• Where real, reliable flexibility value exists today for charge point operators: peak shaving against grid connection limits, day-ahead price optimization, and capturing swings in the imbalance market (Belgium has recorded imbalance prices as extreme as -15,000 EUR/MWh)
• Why "full-stack" flexibility revenue pitches are, in Michel's words, usually "over-promised and under-delivered"
• How a real three-way partner stack actually operates on a live site: FLEXECHARGE as the energy management system, Yuso as the balance service provider reading the market, and Intercell supplying the battery hardware
• What Michel recommends any CPO check first before trying to monetize a battery: whether it can realistically close the site's kilowatt gap, correct sizing, and choosing the right combination of partners

Hear the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube Music, including where the real battery value lies for CPOs today.

#Shorts #EVCharging #GridCongestion #GridFlexibility #BESS

I knew this was coming, but today the reality is for CPOs that even if they want to develop five or 10 chargers of 100 kilowatts and they basically request a grid connection for it, the reality is that the grid allowance that they get, the KVA can actually contract with the distribution grid operator, is seldomly sufficient for them to cover their needs 100% of the time for 100% users of their units. And that's the main reason why I think BESS can play an initial role. It's not the only one. We will go through it, but it's the main one because grid congestion is the reason for this. Grid congestion is not going to go away, not in the short term, because to change that and to reinforce grids, it not only costs billions to do it, but it's also a thing that happens on a different and much longer timescale than the integration of flexibility.