Battery discharge set prices in 46% of dispatch intervals during the evening peak in Q2 2026, displacing gas as the dominant price-setter in those hours, even as the volume-weighted average price for battery discharge fell from AU$427/MWh to AU$101/MWh across the year.
That pressure is already visible at the asset level. Australia’s 55 grid-scale battery storage systems tracked by NEMPulse generated a combined AU$17.98 million (US$12.43 million) in estimated gross energy and FCAS revenue during June 2026, with the fleet capturing just 32% of the revenue a perfect-foresight strategy would have achieved, leaving an estimated AU$34.90 million on the table.
Revenue per MW also varied considerably by duration, with one-hour and four-hour-plus systems each earning around AU$3,000/MW compared with AU$1,000/MW for three-hour assets.
OptiGrid: the fleet is still learning how to behave under stress
Sahand Karimi, chief executive of battery optimisation platform OptiGrid, has argued that the gap between theoretical and captured revenue often comes down to decisions made well before a price event arrives.
