One of the most common questions about BESS is whether a battery can be used for both arbitrage and balancing services at the same time. 🔋

Technically, a battery can split its capacity—allocating part of it to trading (arbitrage) and reserving the rest for the balancing market. However, in practice today, the most common strategy is to keep the BESS in full readiness mode for balancing services.

This is mainly driven by the high prices of balancing services and the significant value found in rare, hard-to-predict price “spikes.” Financially, it’s usually more выгод to prioritize availability for these moments. In other words, batteries are often not actively used for arbitrage because the priority is not to miss high-profit balancing opportunities. 📈

We expect this to shift around Q2 2027, as balancing prices stabilize and gradually decline. At that point, arbitrage will become a more equally attractive option, allowing BESS owners to utilize their systems more efficiently across both revenue streams simultaneously.