Exilion is a Finnish investment and asset management company. It is Finland’s largest domestic wind power producer, with a total operational capacity of 380 MW. Exilion also owns a 6MW/6.6MWh battery energy storage system that has been operational for five years in the Finnish grid.

Exilion partnered with Capalo AI to optimize the trading of their BESS asset in August 2023. Capalo AI’s fully automatic multimarket optimization service (Zeus VPP) has significantly increased the profitability of the BESS asset in a complex and volatile market environment.

Exilion is a Finnish investment and asset management company established in 2005. The company focuses on real estate and renewable energy and currently manages approximately €1.2 billion in assets, which includes ten properties and thirteen wind farms. The company is owned by Finnish institutions.

Exilion Tuuli Ky is one of Finland’s largest domestic wind power producers, with a total operational capacity of 380 MW. The annual production exceeds 1000GWh, which is around the amount of electricity consumed by all households in Helsinki. Exilion also owns a 6MW/6.6MWh battery located in Ii, Viinamäki. Also, the company has two new wind parks under construction in the Municipality of Ii, and the first 70 MW solar park is under construction in the municipality of Simo.

In addition to the current projects, Exilion is always looking for new investment opportunities in areas such as solar energy and energy storage solutions. The company is responsible for investing the assets profitably and sustainably and directing the returns towards Finnish pensions.

Exilion owns a 6MW/6.6MWh battery, which had been trading manually for several years. During discussions with Capalo AI, they learned about Zeus VPP’s capabilities and how an AI-powered trading and multimarket optimization platform could benefit them to maximize the yield of the assets. After reviewing detailed simulations Capalo AI’s team provided, the potential revenue and business case became clear.

Battery energy storage system (BESS) enables new revenue streams for Exilion and, on a larger scale, facilitates the creation of zero-carbon energy networks by combating volatility and grid fluctuations. However, even though batteries are fundamental for green transition and are excellent investments, optimizing and trading BESS is highly challenging.

Some complexities in optimizing and trading BESS include diversifying revenue streams by accessing multiple markets, optimizing the battery within the warranty term and technical restrictions, forecasting market conditions, and trading accordingly. Consequently, it became clear that Exilion could significantly increase the BESS revenues and the battery’s lifetime value with the right optimizer.

Exilion began using the Capalo Zeus VPP solution in the late summer of 2023. As a result, Exilion’s asset became the first fully automatically multimarket-optimized BESS in Finland. The Zeus VPP solution provides Exilion with a comprehensive BESS optimization package. This package optimizes the asset between multiple revenue streams, and its trading algorithms ensure that the asset’s revenue is continuously maximized.

The trading models used by Capalo Zeus VPP draw accurate conclusions by considering multiple factors, such as probabilistic price forecasts, BESS State-of-Charge (SoC) management, and multimarket bidding strategies, in finding optimal trading decisions. The day-ahead trading models also consider the battery’s degradation, deciding when to charge and discharge, and how much of the capacity should be allocated to the ancillary markets while keeping the batteries within their limits.

The following step in the cooperation is expanding Exilion’s battery access to new markets and revenue streams. Participation in the wholesale markets will make their asset’s revenue-making strategy future-proof, protect against the saturation of the ancillary market prices, and allow them to monetize the full potential of their asset’s flexibility. To gain maximum profits in the future, it is also essential to guarantee that the speed of trading decisions and modifications based on market changes is as high as possible. Capalo Zeus VPP’s trader is self-learning and fully adaptive, and it is the fastest intraday trader in the Nordics. By utilizing all the capabilities of Zeus VPP, Exilion can further improve its financial gains from the BESS investment.

Exilion has significantly increased its BESS profitability by using Capalo Zeus VPP, which has given it access to new energy exchange markets. Exilion’s BESS revenue under Capalo AI’s optimization in 2023 was 40 700 € / month / MW. The revenue increased 132% in comparison to the previous trading strategy. Simultaneously, the cycle count of their battery was reduced by 63%. The AI-based, fully automated trading system has also allowed the Exilion team to save time, increase productivity, and avoid the risk of human error in their BESS trading operations. They no longer need to handle day-to-day asset operations, as they can simply follow the Zeus VPP dashboard and reporting.