Regelenergie (balancing energy) is the power Swissgrid calls up in three stages to balance the Swiss grid: primary control reserve within 30 seconds, secondary control reserve within 5 minutes, tertiary control reserve from 15 minutes. Battery storage delivers this power and is paid for reservation and activation. In 2025 reserving secondary control reserve cost Swissgrid around CHF 70'000 per MW on average (ElCom). Businesses access this market through pooling, because the minimum bid is 1 to 5 MW.
Key Takeaways
9 min read
Key Takeaways
9 min read- PV revenues fall at middayOn 1 May 2026 the spot price in Switzerland fell to -38 Rp./kWh; in April and May 2026 there were 150 hours with negative prices (EPEX).
- Swissgrid pays for flexibilityReserving secondary control reserve cost around CHF 70'000 per MW and year on average in 2025, activation 334 EUR/MWh positive and 208 EUR/MWh negative (ElCom).
- Returns from 29 site studiesAverage IRR 15.8%, average payback 6.3 years for storage systems of 90 to 783 kWh (analysis of 29 site studies by Ampere Dynamic, as of 2026).
- Pooling opens the marketNo single commercial storage system reaches the minimum bids of 1 MW (PRL, from mid-2026 TRL) and 5 MW (SRL). A pool bundles systems and handles registration and tenders.
Regelenergie (balancing energy) is the power Swissgrid calls up at short notice so that generation and consumption in the Swiss electricity grid match at every moment. A battery storage system provides this power and is paid twice for it: for reserving the capacity and for every activation. For businesses with a PV system this creates a source of income that does not depend on the midday price at the power exchange.
Why is the economic viability of PV systems falling?
Because more and more solar electricity flows into the grid in the same hour. At the end of 2025, 9.5 GW of photovoltaics were installed in Switzerland, after 8.2 GW in 2024 (BFE solar energy statistics). Swissolar’s base scenario expects around 11 GW for 2026 and 17 to 18 GW for 2030; the 32 GW for 2035 from the Swissolar solar monitor is an expansion target, not an actual value.
Switzerland’s installed generation capacity across all plant types thus stands at around 29.7 GW (Energypartner, WASTA as of 1 January 2026). The highest grid load was 10’424 MW in January 2025 (BFE). Photovoltaics is already the largest single item. The problem is not the quantity but the timing: on clear days the output arrives at midday, when it is worth least.
The spot market shows the consequence. On 1 May 2026 the day-ahead price in Germany stood at -50 Rp./kWh in the afternoon, the price floor at the time, and in Switzerland at -38 Rp./kWh (EPEX Spot, May 2026). In April and May 2026 Switzerland counted 150 hours with negative prices on 28 days. At the end of May 2026 EPEX lowered the price floor from -500 to -600 EUR/MWh.
For operators this means: feed-in remuneration will follow the market price in future. Anyone paid the hourly spot price from 2027 receives little for midday electricity or, in the extreme case, pays to feed it in. How remuneration changes with the Referenzmarktpreis (reference market price) and dynamic tariffs is explained in the article Electricity market 2026: dynamic tariffs. The answer to falling economics is a storage system that shifts the midday electricity and additionally sells flexibility to the grid.
How does Swissgrid keep the electricity grid in balance?
With three stages of control reserve that step in one after the other. If a power plant fails, the grid frequency drops below 50 Hz. Primary control reserve (PRL, Primärregelleistung) stabilises the frequency automatically and is fully active within 30 seconds. Secondary control reserve (SRL) takes over and evens out the imbalance within 5 minutes. If the deviation lasts longer than 15 minutes, Swissgrid manually calls up tertiary control reserve (TRL) (Swissgrid Balancing Roadmap).
The quantities are manageable. In 2025 Swissgrid held around 70 MW of PRL, around 360 MW of SRL and around 500 MW of TRL in the positive direction on annual average (ElCom, control reserve and balancing energy 2025). From 2026 the PRL rises to 80 MW. The minimum bids are graded by product: 1 MW for PRL, from mid-2026 also for TRL, 5 MW for SRL until mid-2027. Together with further grid services, these three products form Swissgrid’s ancillary services (SDL, Systemdienstleistungen).
Battery storage can be used in all three stages. It changes its output in both directions without start-up time: discharging at under-frequency, charging at surplus.
Why does the grid need so much balancing energy in the first place? Because utilities buy their electricity in advance. Every utility belongs to a balance group (Bilanzgruppe), which forecasts its demand in hourly blocks and registers it with Swissgrid as a schedule. Real consumption fluctuates around this schedule. With every new PV system the forecast gets harder: on a cloudy day, feed-in collapses within minutes and jumps back up, and a prosumer switches between grid purchase and feed-in several times a day.
The difference between forecast and actual value is called Ausgleichsenergie (imbalance energy). Swissgrid provides it with balancing energy and charges it to the balance group. The more forecast errors renewable generation causes, the more balancing energy is activated and the more valuable a battery that reacts within seconds becomes.
What does the balancing energy market pay for battery storage?
Two payments: one for reserving the capacity in CHF per MW and year, one for the energy activated in EUR per MWh. Reserving secondary control reserve cost Swissgrid a total of CHF 50.4 million for around 718 MW in 2025, that is around CHF 70’000 per MW and year on average within a range of CHF 50’000 to 100’000 (ElCom). In 2024 it was around CHF 85’000, at the 2023 peak around CHF 527’000 per MW.
For a storage system both count. Reservation is paid whether Swissgrid activates or not; every activation comes on top. A storage system offering positive and negative capacity earns in both directions.
The peak in 2022 and 2023 had two causes: the European energy crisis and an extremely high market concentration with few marketers (Swissgrid Balancing Roadmap; ElCom study NEON/Takon/ZEW of 27 November 2025). Reservation prices have fallen since. Activation prices, by contrast, rose in 2024, driven by forecast errors of PV feed-in in the balance groups. Since 3 March 2025 a price cap of 1’000 EUR/MWh has applied to secondary control energy, extended to the end of 2026; before that it was 15’000 EUR/MWh (ElCom).
The volume is growing. Total activated balancing energy rose from around 700 GWh in 2020 to around 1’160 GWh in 2025, above all in tertiary control energy (ElCom, fig. 28). On the supply side, more providers from Switzerland and abroad are entering, which shifts the price curve to the right. Ampere Dynamic therefore expects roughly stable earnings in the medium term: more demand, more supply, stable prices.
What does a battery storage site study show?
A site study answers which storage system delivers which return at your site. The input data are the load profile (Lastgang) in 15-minute resolution, the PV production and the capacity of the service connection. The model tests three levers: self-consumption optimisation (EVO), peak shaving against the demand charge (Leistungspreis) and ancillary services (SDL).
The result is not an estimate but a calculation on your data: capacity in kWh, power in kW, investment, IRR and payback for each use case combination.
The analysis of 29 site studies by Ampere Dynamic, as of 2026, gives an average IRR of 15.8% and an average payback of 6.3 years. The storage systems range from 90 to 783 kWh, the investment from CHF 47’000 to 227’000. The combination of levers is decisive. In the table, the order names the primary use case first: «SDL + EVO» means the storage is sized mainly for ancillary services and optimises self-consumption on the side.
IRR and payback by use case combination
| Metric | Peak shaving + EVO | SDL + EVO | EVO + SDL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main application | Cap load peaks | Provide balancing energy | Raise self-consumption |
| Average IRR | 17.7% | 17.3% | 14.5% |
| Average payback | 5.9 years | 5.5 years | 6.6 years |
| Analysis of 29 site studies by Ampere Dynamic, as of 2026. The order names the primary use case first. | |||
Peak shaving or ancillary services as the main application beat pure self-consumption optimisation by around three percentage points of IRR. The reason: self-consumption shifts midday electricity into the morning peak and saves the purchase price, whereas peak shaving lowers the demand charge for the whole month and SDL generates a payment that flows independently of your own consumption. The energy management system coordinates the levers so that the battery stays charged for the balancing energy reservation and still catches the load peak.
In practice, the large storage system of Post Immobilien AG in Untervaz shows this: 2 MWh of capacity and 1’000 kW of power, designed for grid support, combined with a 264 kWp PV facade. How peak shaving pays on its own is shown in Peak shaving for businesses; when storage replaces grid expansion is covered in the comparison article. The commercial storage guide gives an overview of all revenue sources.
How pooling with Ampere Dynamic works
No commercial storage system reaches the minimum bid of 5 MW for secondary control reserve on its own. Pooling therefore bundles many systems into one virtual unit. Ampere Dynamic registers your system, takes part in Swissgrid’s tenders and looks after operation. Because we know your system and your site’s needs from the planning stage, we market it in line with your load profile.
From enquiry to additional revenue
Get in touch
You contact us with your site, PV capacity and, if available, storage size. In a first conversation we clarify which balancing energy market is an option for your system.
Pooling contract or storage analysis
If you own a PV system, you sign the pooling contract for the tertiary control reserve market. If you are planning a storage system, you commission a storage analysis that sizes the system for your site.
Install the modem or build the storage
For the PV system we install a modem in your switchboard that connects the system to the pool. For the storage system we develop a system tailored to your load profile and build it turnkey.
Registration with Swissgrid
We register your PV system or battery storage in the pool and handle the tenders. Market access involves no administrative effort on your side.
Receive additional revenue
The pool markets the reservation and the activations. You receive your share of the revenue and a report showing reservation, activations and remuneration.
For the two routes Ampere Dynamic calculates different potentials. A PV system in the pool for tertiary control reserve earns up to CHF 15’000 per MW and year, a battery storage system on the market for secondary control reserve up to CHF 150’000 per MW and year (Ampere Dynamic model estimate, 2026, indicative only). The external anchor: reserving SRL cost Swissgrid around CHF 70’000 per MW on average in 2025 (ElCom). A storage system reaches the upper value only when reservation and activation are combined across several products.
What the pool does not change: the system remains your property, and peak shaving and self-consumption continue. The energy management system holds back the committed capacity for the reservation and uses the rest of the storage for your site.
In the same model calculation, total revenue from ancillary services for 2025 comes to up to CHF 100’000 to 150’000 per MW and year (Ampere Dynamic model estimate, 2026, indicative only). There is no published Swiss benchmark for this. That is why we calculate every site individually and state the assumptions. What marketing covers beyond the balancing energy market, from ZEV to PPA, is described by our solution Energy marketing; the technical side of the storage is covered by the solution Battery storage.
The sources for the market figures: ElCom, control reserve and balancing energy 2025, Swissgrid Balancing Roadmap and BFE Swiss electricity statistics.