FAQ: Multi-market optimisation (MMO)
Common customer questions about how KanEL's battery optimisation works across spot trading, peak shaving, and ancillary services.
Behind the meter
Lower electricity cost through cheaper imports, smarter use of stored energy, and smoother demand peaks.
Front of meter
Additional revenue when the battery participates in ancillary service markets through Svenska kraftnät.
AI optimisation
The system always balances savings, export value, and ancillary-service revenue to choose the most profitable behaviour.
How MMO works in practice
KanEL optimises the battery across several revenue and savings streams at the same time. The system does not only look at spot prices, it also weighs grid tariffs, demand peaks, and revenues from ancillary services.
That means the battery may sometimes act in ways that look unexpected if you only watch the electricity price or solar production in a single app. The goal is always to maximise the total economic outcome for the site.
- Charges during cheaper hours when that improves total economics
- Discharges to cover local consumption, export, or keep capacity available
- Continuously adjusts to the site's load profile and market conditions
What does behind-the-meter optimisation mean?
Behind-the-meter optimisation reduces your electricity and grid cost by controlling the battery according to the site's actual consumption.
The system buys more electricity when it is cheap and uses or sells energy when it is more valuable. That is why total import can sometimes increase while your cost per kWh still goes down.
- Lower electricity bill even if imported volume can sometimes increase
- Lower demand charges through smoother consumption peaks
- Potential export revenues through your electricity retailer
What are front-of-meter revenues?
Front-of-meter revenues are generated when the battery participates in ancillary service markets through Svenska kraftnät.
At the moment, these markets are often more profitable than pure spot-price arbitrage, which affects how the battery allocates its capacity.
- FCR-D up and down: frequency containment reserve for disturbances
- FCR-N: frequency containment reserve for normal operation with both up- and down-regulation
- mFRR EAM: manual frequency restoration reserve
Why does it look like solar electricity is sold directly to the grid instead of used on-site?
Apps like SolarEdge mainly show produced energy, not the full picture of imports, exports, and self-consumption.
The KanEL portal shows the real energy balance. What looks like all solar production being exported can in practice be a mix of local use, battery storage, and export.
During winter, solar generation is often small compared with the site's total consumption, so the economic effect is more limited than during summer.
Why does the battery charge or discharge at odd times?
The optimisation simultaneously considers spot prices, grid conditions, demand peaks, and ancillary-service revenue.
That means the battery may charge or discharge at times that look illogical if you only follow the spot price, but that still produce a better total result.
We plan to surface more detailed revenue breakdowns in the portal so these decisions become easier to understand.
Why wasn't the battery fully charged overnight when electricity was cheap?
During the night, the battery may need to reserve capacity for ancillary services that require room to both charge and discharge.
If the battery were fully charged, it would limit the ability to deliver those services. The system therefore chooses what creates the best total economic value, not just the lowest purchase price.
Why isn't the battery used more aggressively for peak shaving?
Peak shaving is part of the model, but it is always weighed against other revenue sources.
If the value of ancillary services or other optimisation is higher than the saving from shaving a peak in that hour, the more profitable action is prioritised.
The Electricity Economics tab in the portal gives an overview of the combined effect.
Why do I receive a self-invoice from Bixia for production?
You have separate connection points for consumption and production. The battery can therefore buy electricity through the consumption point when prices are low and sell through the production point when prices are higher.
The self-invoice reflects the profit from that trading, and the same logic is also visible in the portal under Electricity Economics.