Last updated: 03 November 2026
Netherlands Methodology
Modo Energy provides benchmark data for battery energy storage systems across global energy markets, applying a standardized methodology to ensure consistency and transparency across all produced Indices.
1. Introduction
The Modo Energy Netherlands Methodology Framework outlines how Modo Energy calculates and constructs its battery energy storage Indices in the Netherlands. This document provides detailed insights into:
- the assumptions that define a representative asset;
- the components that make up published revenues;
- the optimisation model that simulates asset dispatch; and
- the data inputs and transformations that feed the simulation
to ensure accurate and reliable benchmarking for the Dutch battery energy storage sector.
1.1 Why the Netherlands requires a simulated index
The Modo Energy Netherlands Index differs from Modo Energy's GB Index in one fundamental respect: it is simulated, not measured.
The Netherlands has no asset-level data regime. Battery operational activity in the wholesale and ancillary markets is not publicly reported per asset.
To produce a benchmark under these conditions, Modo Energy simulates the dispatch of a representative battery asset against publicly available market data, using our Global Dispatch Model, a mixed-integer linear programme (MILP) that optimises battery revenues subject to market participation rules.
1.2 What the Netherlands Simulated Index represents
The Modo Energy Netherlands Index family (the ME vBESS NL Indices) represents the simulated revenue performance of grid-scale lithium-ion battery energy storage systems in the Netherlands. To capture differences in technical characteristics, the Index family includes variants grouped by system duration. This allows comparison of revenues across different types of utility-scale battery systems. The indices reflect the revenues a representative asset could earn.
The Dutch ancillary markets are shallow. The Index simulates the representative asset against realised prices with no market-impact adjustment: it assumes the asset's own bids would not have moved the clearing price. That assumption holds comfortably in the day-ahead and intraday markets. It is weaker in the Dutch balancing stack: the FCR contracted by TenneT is 55 MW, and when the 4-hour aFRR capacity product was released in November 2025, the entire book was 46 MW upward and 50 MW downward.
1.3 Definitions
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Modo Energy | Modo Energy Limited, which designs, calculates and publishes the Index (the administrator). |
| ME vBESS NL Indices | The three simulated benchmarks described in this document, one per battery duration: 1H, 2H and 4H. |
| Representative asset | The hypothetical battery in §2.2 whose dispatch the Index simulates. |
| Rated power | The battery's maximum charging or discharging power, in MW. |
| Duration | The number of hours the battery can run at rated power from full. |
| State of charge (SOC) | The energy stored in the battery, as a percentage of its usable capacity. |
| Cycle | One full charge and discharge. The Index counts it on the discharge side: discharging energy equal to the battery's usable capacity (§5.5). |
| Settlement period (ISP) | The 15-minute period in which energy is settled. It is the time step of the Index. |
| TenneT | The Dutch transmission system operator (TSO). |
| Day-ahead (DA) | The EPEX SPOT auction for the next day (single day-ahead coupling, SDAC). |
| Intraday auction (IDA2) | The second of the three pan-European intraday auctions (SIDC). |
| Intraday continuous (ID3) | Continuous trading up to delivery. The ID3 index is the EPEX SPOT average price of continuous trades in the hours just before delivery. |
| FCR | Frequency Containment Reserve: a symmetric reserve bought through the FCR cooperation. |
| aFRR | Automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve. aFRR capacity pays for holding power available to the TSO. |
| aFRR energy (aFRRE) | The aFRR energy the TSO actually activates, paid per MWh. |
| PICASSO | The European platform that exchanges aFRR energy between TSOs. |
| CBMP | The cross-border marginal price that PICASSO sets for aFRR energy. |
| Merit order (bid ladder) | aFRR energy bids ranked by price, which the TSO activates in that order. |
| Perfect foresight | Deciding with knowledge of prices that a trader would only learn later. |
| Global Dispatch Model (GDM) | The optimisation model that simulates dispatch (§5.1). |
| Stable Version | The version of the GDM used for the Index (§7.1). |
| Material change | A change that moves the Index by more than ±2% cumulatively in a calendar quarter (§7.3). |
2. Index Construction
2.1 The ME vBESS NL Indices
Modo Energy currently produces a family of three indices for the Netherlands:
| Index | Duration |
|---|---|
| ME vBESS NL (1H) | 1-hour |
| ME vBESS NL (2H) | 2-hour |
| ME vBESS NL (4H) | 4-hour |
All three indices use the same published methodology, differing only in the duration parameter of the representative asset.
2.2 Representative BESS specification
The representative asset is specified as follows:
| Parameter | Value | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Rated power | 10 MW | A round figure close to the median scale of the operational utility-scale BESS fleet in the Netherlands. Small enough to remain a credible price taker in the shallow Dutch balancing markets. |
| Duration variants | 1 h, 2 h, 4 h | Spans the range of commercially deployed durations. |
| Round-trip efficiency | 88% | AC-AC efficiency representative of current lithium-ion BESS, applied to charging flows. |
| Max cycles per day | 1.5 | Representative contractual warranty. |
| Max depth of discharge | 100% | Representative of current technologies. |
| Cell degradation | Disabled | Duration of assets stays the same through the index for ease of comparison. |
| Grid import/export limit | Equal to rated power (10 MW) | No grid connection restrictions assumed. |
| Grid fees | 0 EUR/MW | Dutch transport tariffs are levied per MW of contracted transport capacity, not per MWh. See §3.2. |
2.3 Index calculation methodology
The Index is calculated by:
- Running Modo Energy's Global Dispatch Model over the assessed period, using the representative asset specification in §2.2 and the input data sources in §4.2.
- Computing the simulated revenue of the representative asset across each modelled market and direction, in EUR, at 15-minute resolution.
- Summing revenues per settlement period (15 minutes) and normalising by the rated power of the representative asset (10 MW) to obtain an Index value in EUR/MW per 15-minute settlement period.
- Aggregating these values into monthly, quarterly, and annual indices as described in §2.4.
The calculation follows a clearly defined, rule-based methodology, with a percentage calibration factor to account for imperfect foresight as a discretionary adjustment (see §5.10).
2.4 Index value representation
All Index values are reported as net revenues per unit of rated power. Revenue and Index values can be represented using the following units:
- EUR/MW (period): total Index revenue for the assessed period (e.g. EUR/MW/month, EUR/MW/year).
- EUR/MW/year (annualised): total Index revenue for the assessed period divided by the number of days in the period and multiplied by 365.
2.5 Publication cadence and revisions
The ME vBESS NL Indices are updated daily. Modo Energy ingests source data from all markets listed in §4.2 daily and publishes Index values for delivery day D-2 every calendar day. The two-day publication lag allows settlement, late submissions, and backfills to complete before computing that day’s Index. Previously published Index values may be revised if upstream data providers issue corrected values for periods already covered by a published Index, if additional source data becomes available that materially improves the accuracy of a historical Index value, or if a methodology change under §7 is applied with retrospective effect.
2.6 Market evolution reflected in the Index
The Index reflects each market structure only for periods in which its native mechanism and data were in force. The key milestones are:
| Milestone | Effective date | Impact on the Index |
|---|---|---|
| SIDC pan-European intraday auctions (IDA1, IDA2, IDA3) launched across Europe | 13 June 2024 | IDA prices provide an additional opportunity for rebalancing day-ahead positions. The intraday auction step is inactive before this date. |
| TenneT NL acceded to the PICASSO platform for aFRR energy exchange | 18 October 2024 (first delivery day) | aFRR activated energy is dispatched through the European platform from this date. The Index continues to settle aFRR energy at the Dutch marginal settlement price published by TenneT, not at the cross-border marginal price (CBMP). |
| EPEX SDAC day-ahead auction moved from 60-minute to 15-minute market time unit | 1 October 2025 (first delivery day) | Day-ahead revenue calculation switches from hourly clearing prices to 15-minute clearing prices from this date; the day-ahead optimisation step also moves from 60-minute to 15-minute granularity (see §5.3.1) |
| TenneT began procuring part of the aFRR capacity requirement in 4-hour blocks, alongside the existing Daily product | 11 November 2025 | Before this date the Index models the Daily product: one commitment held across all 24 hours. TenneT kept both products running in parallel. The Index keeps modelling the Daily product until the 4-hour book became the deeper of the two on the week of 24 August 2026. The 4-hour blocks took around 10% of the aFRR requirement at launch. From 24 August 2026 the Index models the 4-hour blocks only and disregards the Daily product. |
3. Revenue Components
3.1 Revenue components included in the Indices
The Modo Energy Netherlands Indices capture the primary revenue opportunities available to a representative BESS in the Dutch wholesale and ancillary markets. The table below details each component, the market from which it is modelled, and the price signal used.
| Revenue stream | Source | Direction | Price signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day Ahead (DA) | EPEX SPOT NL (SDAC) | Charge and discharge | Hourly clearing price (EUR/MWh) until Oct 2025, 15-minute clearing price thereafter |
| Intraday Auction (IDA) | EPEX SPOT NL | Charge and discharge | IDA2 clearing price (EUR/MWh) |
| Intraday Continuous (IDC) | EPEX SPOT NL, ID3 index | Charge and discharge | Positions assumed fully closed out at the intraday (ID3) market; no residual imbalance exposure modelled. |
| FCR capacity | Regelleistung FCR cooperation, NL demand | Symmetric (up and down at equal volume) | Marginal capacity price (EUR/MW per 4h block), converted to EUR/MW/h |
| aFRR capacity | ENTSO-E Transparency Platform, contracted balancing reserves (NL) | Up and down procured separately | Published price is EUR/MW per 15-minute ISP, converted to EUR/MW/h and clipped to a trailing p95 (see §5.8) |
| aFRR activated energy (aFRRE) | TenneT settlement prices | Up and down | Dutch marginal activation price (EUR/MWh) inside the optimisation window; merit-order price at a fixed depth beyond it (see §5.7) |
3.2 Excluded revenues
Revenues from the following sources are excluded from the Modo Energy Netherlands Indices:
- Imbalance settlement: positions are assumed fully closed out in the intraday continuous market; the Dutch imbalance price is not applied.
- Grid fees and transport tariffs: set to zero for the representative asset. Dutch transport tariffs are levied per MW of contracted transport capacity, not per MWh of energy, so a tariff does not change the merit order of any individual trade. Grid fees will be made available in Custom Benchmarks.
- mFRR capacity and activated energy: not currently modelled. Modo Energy will review incorporation in a future methodology version if we see major market participation from batteries.
- Congestion management products (GOPACS, capaciteitsbeperkingscontracten): asset- and location-specific; not modelled.
- Bilateral contracts (PPAs, tolls, floors): not modelled as they don't affect the optimal battery dispatch dynamics apart from in some co-located cases.
- Battery operator fees, warranty costs, and O&M: the Index reports gross market revenue, not net-of-opex.
4. Data Inputs and Use of Discretion
4.1 Data visibility and quality
The Modo Energy Netherlands Index is constructed exclusively from publicly available market data, with the exception of the representative asset in §2.2 and the parameters below, which are set by Modo Energy rather than observed. The table lists each parameter with its value, the reason for it and the section that defines it. Modo Energy's market owner for the Netherlands, currently Emiel Van Vlaenderen, sets and maintains both (§4.3).
| Parameter | Value | Rationale | Defined in |
|---|---|---|---|
| State of charge at midnight | 50% | Lets each day be solved on its own and leaves room for capacity commitments in the first block | §5.5 |
| aFRR state-of-charge hold | 1 hour in the day-ahead and intraday auction steps; 40 minutes in the intraday continuous step | Exposure after the aFRR energy gate closure, plus a margin when the capacity is committed | §5.4.1 |
| Expected aFRR activation held in SOC | 7% of contracted aFRR, per direction, in the day-ahead and intraday auction steps only; priced at the day-ahead price in the optimisation | Keeps energy for the activation that contracted aFRR brings. TenneT activated 7.7% of the upward aFRR energy offered on its merit order, October 2025 to September 2026 | §5.6 |
| aFRR up + down limit | 133% of rated power for 1 hour, 146% for 2 hours, 163% for 4 hours. Each direction on its own up to rated power | Fitted to a replay of a year of TenneT aFRR activation | §5.4.2 |
| aFRR up and down limit | aFRR up limited by how fast the battery can charge, aFRR down by how fast it can discharge | The same replay, run at lower charging and discharging power | §5.4.3 |
| aFRR energy activation cap (k) | Rolling 365-day 99.9th percentile of activated over offered bids, per direction, fixed for each day; quarter-hours with less than 50 MW offered are treated as gaps | The share of the bid ladder TenneT normally uses | §5.6 |
| aFRR energy forecast depth | 260 MW upward, 240 MW downward: the 80th percentile of activation depth, 1 January 2025 to 31 August 2026 | The battery is only activated when the system goes deep into the ladder | §5.7 |
| aFRR capacity price ceiling | Trailing 30-day 95th percentile of the volume-weighted average price, per direction | Bid discipline: a battery does not bid at the few extreme accepted prices | §5.8 |
| FCR valuation | Market price less 7% of the trailing 30-day aFRR energy spread, per 4-hour block, floored at zero | A MW held for FCR cannot earn aFRR energy | §5.9 |
| FCR price fault threshold | Block prices above €4,000/MW are replaced with the German price from the same coupled auction | Such prices are publication faults | §8.3 |
| Revenue calibration factor | 0.80 | The share of perfect-foresight revenue that operating batteries earn in Great Britain | §5.10 |
4.2 Data inputs and sources
| Inputs | Source |
|---|---|
| Day Ahead price (DA) | EPEX SPOT |
| Intraday Auction price (IDA) | EPEX SPOT |
| Intraday Continuous price (IDC) | EPEX SPOT |
| FCR capacity price and demand | Regelleistung |
| aFRR capacity price | ENTSO-E Transparency Platform |
| aFRR activated energy price | TenneT |
| aFRR energy bid ladder | TenneT |
| aFRR activation volume | TenneT (same as ENTSO-E) |
FCR activation data is not currently ingested for the Netherlands; FCR activation throughput is modelled as zero (§5.6).
4.3 Use of discretion and consistent judgment
The Index is rule-based. The parameters in §4.1 apply in the same way to every day and every duration, and no value is set by hand for a single day. Judgment is used only when a parameter is chosen or changed, and the market owner makes that call. Every parameter sits in the code of the Global Dispatch Model, so a change is reviewed by a second person before release, is tested by the automated regression tests in §8.1, and follows the change process in §7.3.
5. Modelling Methodology
5.1 Overview of the Global Dispatch Model
The NL Index is produced by simulating the dispatch of representative assets described in §2.2 against historical market prices using Modo Energy's Global Dispatch Model (GDM). For each day in the assessed period, the GDM determines how the representative asset would have scheduled its power across the markets in §3.1 to maximise revenue, given the battery's physical limits and the rules governing each market.
5.2 What the model is solving for
At its core, the GDM answers a single practical question: given the prices observed on a given day and the asset's physical and regulatory limits, what is the highest revenue a well-run battery could have earned?
To answer this, the model allocates the battery's power and stored energy across two families of market opportunities:
- Energy markets: day-ahead, intraday auction (IDA2), intraday continuous (ID3), and aFRR activated energy.
- Ancillary capacity markets: FCR and aFRR, in which the battery is paid to hold capacity available for TenneT.
Revenue is the sum of these streams, net of charging cost. Internal consistency rules prevent schedules that look profitable on paper, but a physical battery cannot execute (§5.4).
5.3 Three-step optimisation sequence
A real BESS trader in the Netherlands does not make all decisions at the same moment. Capacity products are procured the day before delivery, day-ahead energy clears shortly after, the intraday auction clears at a fixed point, and the continuous intraday market runs up to near real time, with aFRR energy bids repriced until shortly before each ISP. Each market gate closes before the next, and traders have to commit at each gate using only the information available at that point.
The model reflects this by solving the dispatch problem in three sequential steps:
- Day-ahead step: sets capacity commitments (FCR and aFRR) and day-ahead energy positions.
- Intraday Auction step: rebalances those positions through IDA2.
- Intraday Continuous step: determines the final rebalancing in ID3 and the aFRR activated-energy positions.
Each step takes the positions committed in earlier steps as fixed: once a decision is locked in, the model cannot unwind it retroactively. This sequencing is what makes the simulation directionally realistic rather than a single idealised all-markets optimisation.
5.3.1 Day-ahead step
- Granularity: 60 minutes before 2025-10-01; 15 minutes from 2025-10-01 onward (reflecting the SDAC transition to a 15-minute day-ahead auction).
- Foresight: perfect foresight of day-ahead energy prices and the marginal FCR capacity prices, and the volume weighted average capacity prices for aFRR over the full day.
- Markets optimised: day-ahead energy, FCR capacity, aFRR capacity.
5.3.2 Intraday Auction step
- Granularity: 15 minutes.
- Foresight: perfect foresight of intraday auction prices across the full day.
- Markets optimised: intraday auction (IDA2) only. Inactive before 13 June 2024.
- Commitments carried in: day-ahead energy positions, FCR capacity, aFRR capacity from Step 1 are fixed.
5.3.3 Intraday Continuous step
-
Granularity: 15 minutes.
-
Rolling horizon: 2-hour windows, advanced sequentially.
-
Foresight: imperfect price foresight.
-
The underlying ID3 continuous-intraday series is replaced by a centred 2-hour rolling mean, representing a trader's blended view of near-term prices without perfect look-ahead.
-
aFRR energy prices beyond the window are instead taken from the aFRRE merit order published by TenneT, explained in §5.7.
-
-
Markets optimised: intraday continuous (ID3) energy, aFRR activated energy (aFRRE), positive and negative.
-
Commitments carried in: all prior steps' positions are fixed.
5.4 Market stacking and physical limits
Dutch market design permits a battery to hold simultaneous positions across day-ahead energy, intraday energy, FCR capacity, aFRR capacity, and aFRR energy, subject to physical limits on the battery and the grid connection. The model enforces stacking via the following families of constraints:
- Sufficient SOC for ancillary delivery: the battery's state of charge at each timestep must be enough to deliver all simultaneously held discharging-direction ancillary products over their product-specific delivery horizons, and to absorb all charging-direction products. The horizons are set out in §5.4.1.
- Sufficient power for ancillary delivery: held FCR and aFRR capacity is a power reservation: every MW committed is withheld from the energy markets in that period, so it stays available if TenneT calls. The one exception is aFRR energy against aFRR capacity, where activation delivers the reservation rather than adding to it, so aFRRE is netted out rather than stacked on top. FCR has no equivalent, since its activation is not modelled (§5.6).
- aFRR vs aFRRE double-counting prevention: aFRR (capacity reservation) and aFRRE (energy activation) are distinct products. The model applies a pair of parallel constraints so that each physical limit (grid, battery, SOC) is checked once including aFRR and once including aFRRE, but never double-counted in a single inequality.
- No cross-direction wholesale and activation in the same ISP: the model blocks holding aFRRE upward together with an ID3 downward position in the same settlement period, and the reverse. These would net out on paper due to the 15min granularity, while representing two contradictory physical instructions.
5.4.1 SOC delivery horizons
| Product | Delivery horizon held in SOC | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| FCR | 30 minutes | The 30-minute criterion in the FCR cooperation prequalification conditions. |
| aFRR capacity | 1 hour in DA and IDA, 40 minutes in continuous |
Committed exposure, not prequalification. See below. |
Both aFRR horizons are Modo Energy modelling assumptions and are stated as such. TenneT’s published position is that no separate rules apply to limited energy resources. It is applied at 1 hour through the day-ahead and intraday auction steps, and at 40 minutes in the intraday continuous step.
Why 40 minutes? An aFRR energy bid can be repriced until roughly 25 minutes before each ISP. Once that gate passes, the offered capacity must stay deliverable across the 15-minute ISP itself plus the 25 minutes of lead time already elapsed (40 minutes total), regardless of what happens in the market in between.
Why 1 hour at commitment? The day-ahead step is where the capacity volume is chosen, and that is the decision the asset cannot revisit. The commitment tier therefore carries the 40 minutes of exposure plus a margin, because activation can still reach the asset even when it is positioned at the far end of the aFRR energy merit order, and because the asset commits before it knows how deep the ladder will run on the day.
5.4.2 Limit on aFRR up and down held together
The limit comes from a replay of TenneT's aFRR activation from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026, for batteries of 1 to 12 hours on a full grid connection.
In each quarter-hour, and separately for up and down, the battery is activated on the same share of its aFRR capacity as TenneT activated of all aFRR energy bids offered. For example, if TenneT activated 150 MW of 600 MW of upward bids, a battery holding 10 MW of aFRR up delivers 2.5 MW (25%) in that quarter-hour. The replay assumes a 50% state of charge at the start and a wholesale position that rebalances the state of charge one quarter-hour later.
For each duration, it finds the largest aFRR up plus down the battery can hold without ever running short. The Index caps aFRR up plus down in each quarter-hour at that share of rated power. Each direction on its own stays capped at rated power.
| Duration | aFRR up + down, share of rated power |
|---|---|
| 1 hour | 133% |
| 2 hours | 146% |
| 4 hours | 163% |
5.4.3 Limit on aFRR up by charging power, and on aFRR down by discharging power
After upward activation, a battery has to charge back the energy it delivered, and after downward activation, it has to discharge the energy it took in. How much aFRR it can hold therefore depends on how fast it can do that. It applies to Custom Benchmarks whose import or export connection is smaller than rated power. Both limits come from the same test as §5.4.2, run at lower charging and discharging power, and both fall to zero when the battery cannot charge or discharge at all:
- aFRR up is limited by the battery's charging power: its import connection plus the on-site solar it may store, at most rated power, averaged over the day.
- aFRR down is limited by its discharging power: its export connection, at most rated power, averaged over the day.
| Duration | Charging power needed for full aFRR up | Discharging power needed for full aFRR down |
|---|---|---|
| 1 hour | 48% of rated power | 21% |
| 2 hours | 28% | 11% |
| 4 hours | 18% | 6% |
5.5 Battery physical model
The representative asset is modelled as a single lumped battery whose behaviour is governed by four technical characteristics:
- Round-trip efficiency of 88%. Efficiency losses are applied to the charging flow — 1 MWh drawn from the grid stores 0.88 MWh of usable energy.
- Continuous state of charge. The battery's stored energy in each timestep equals the previous timestep's level plus charging (net of efficiency) minus discharging. Energy delivered through aFRR activation moves SOC on the same basis as any other energy trade.
- State of charge boundaries. To allow for day-by-day solving of the model, SOC is assumed to be 50% at midnight of each day. This is to allow for participation in ancillary markets in the first 4h block of the day, in line with SOC requirements for FCR and aFRR positive.
- Cycling limit per day. Total discharge throughput per day is capped at 1.5 times the battery's usable capacity. Both wholesale-market discharge and aFRR activation count toward this limit, reflecting that warranties are typically written on total throughput rather than on the market into which the energy was sold.
Cell-level degradation is intentionally disabled in the published Index (§2.2) to keep the asset's duration constant throughout the full history, preserving comparability across years.
5.6 Ancillary services: capacity vs activated energy
The Dutch balancing stack distinguishes between reserving capacity (capacity payments) and being called to deliver energy (activation payments). The model treats these as two separate but coupled products, bid into different gates:
Capacity in both markets is bid in the day-ahead step, paid at the cleared capacity price (EUR/MW/h) over each delivery block, and reduces the power and SOC available to the energy markets.
- FCR capacity market: no throughput assumed. The product is symmetric, so expected activation nets out, and the activated energy is not compensated. There is no Dutch FCR activation feed either.
- aFRR capacity market: 7% throughput per leg, held in state of charge in the day-ahead and intraday auction steps, and dropped in the intraday continuous step, where it is replaced by the actual aFRR energy dispatch. It is priced at the day-ahead price during those optimisations. Unlike FCR, aFRR has a remunerated energy market attached to it, and it is asymmetric: upward and downward are procured separately, so an upward commitment has to be covered by energy bought elsewhere. The downward leg is divided by the round-trip efficiency so that an equal upward and downward position nets out rather than draining the battery.
- aFRR energy market: a separate 15-minute directional product, bid in the intraday continuous step. The battery is paid, or pays, at the Dutch marginal activation price for energy actually delivered, which moves SOC and counts toward the daily cycling limit.
aFRRE activation volumes are capped by the active merit order. Because aFRRE is only valuable if activated, the held aFRRE volume in a given settlement period is capped at the share of the active merit order that TenneT activated, multiplied by the most aFRR energy the asset could still offer in that direction:
The numerator is the aFRR energy TenneT activated from Dutch bids in that quarter-hour for direction d. The denominator is the active merit order: the aFRR energy bids offered in TenneT's merit order list for that quarter-hour, multiplied by k, the share of the merit order that is frequently activated. A battery either wants to be activated and bids inside that share, or prices itself out of it.
k is the 99.9th percentile of activated over offered across the 365 days before each day, set per direction and fixed for the whole day. Activation is measured as a 15-minute average: TenneT can reach the full bid ladder for moments, but almost never uses it for a whole quarter-hour.
This ratio is a ceiling on the volume that could be activated, not an expectation of what will be. It caps how much aFRRE the asset may hold in that quarter-hour; the optimiser is free to hold less, or none. No floor is applied in the other direction, because a battery can always price itself high enough in the merit order that its activation probability is very low.
is how far the asset's setpoint can still travel in that direction: its grid limit, net of the day-ahead and intraday position it already holds and of the FCR it is holding. It is not scaled to the aFRR capacity already won: aFRR (capacity) and aFRRE (energy) are bid and priced independently, and batteries can participate in aFRRE with more capacity than they have bid in the aFRR capacity market. Only one direction of aFRRE can be held in any given settlement period.
5.7 Foresight on aFRR energy
Inside the 2-hour rolling window of the intraday continuous step (§5.3.3), the model has perfect foresight of the realised Dutch marginal settlement price, the price the asset is actually paid on the energy it delivers.
Beyond the rolling-horizon window, the model needs a price for aFRR energy in case the battery is activated. aFRR energy is settled pay-as-cleared. In each quarter-hour, the price is set by the last bid the system activates in the merit order. The battery is only activated when the system reaches deep into that ladder. Those are the most expensive quarter-hours.
The forecast is therefore priced at the depth the system reaches in its 20% most extreme quarter-hours, the 80th percentile of activation depth. That is 260 MW upward and 240 MW downward. The two directions are calibrated separately, from 1 January 2025 to 31 August 2026.
5.8 aFRR capacity price ceiling (bid discipline)
Dutch aFRR capacity is procured pay-as-bid, and the published price can be pulled well above what a typical BESS operator would bid when a small number of very high bids are accepted, as bidding high risks losing the capacity entirely and earning nothing.
The Netherlands applies a rolling ceiling: prices are clipped to the trailing 30-day 95th percentile of the volume-weighted average price, computed separately for the positive and negative directions.
The Index prices a single 10 MW asset and assumes it is selected in full at that price. A bid of this size takes a small share of the volume TenneT procures, so the volume-weighted average is a fair representation of what it earns. A large portfolio bidding at a single price carries a real risk of partial or full non-selection, bids defensively as a result, and should expect to capture less. This is a selection effect from bid size rather than a gap between the model and reality, so it is not carried in the calibration factor in §5.10.
5.9 FCR-specific rules
Dutch FCR is procured through the FCR cooperation and cleared on the Regelleistung platform, so the product rules follow the cooperation's rather than a Dutch-specific design.
- Symmetric product: positive and negative capacity are contracted in equal volumes. The cooperation publishes one clearing price for the symmetric MW, which the model attributes to the positive leg only.
- Symmetric derating: the total (positive + negative) held FCR capacity is capped at 80% of the battery's rated power, consistent with the pre-qualification rules.
- aFRRE opportunity cost: every MW held as FCR is a MW that cannot earn aFRR energy. The optimiser therefore values FCR at its market price less that forgone revenue, floored at zero. Revenue is still settled at the market price, so the discount changes which product the asset chooses, not what it is paid.
where is the expected aFRR throughput of 7% (§5.6), and are volume-weighted aFRR energy prices over the trailing 30 days, taken per 4-hour block .
5.10 Revenue calibration
To bridge the gap between theoretical maximum and what a real BESS fleet can earn, we apply a calibration factor that can be interpreted as "percent of perfect" (PoP). Three residual gaps remain between real market conditions and a simulated revenue model:
- Foresight gap: within the day-ahead and intraday steps, the model sees intra-window prices that a real trader does not know at gate closure.
- Availability gap: real assets are not available 100% of the time. Scheduled and unscheduled outages, maintenance windows, and prequalification re-tests all reduce the hours in which a battery can actually earn revenue.
- Execution gap: residual trading frictions and slippage not already reflected in the above.
The Index bridges this with a flat calibration factor applied to all simulated per-timestep revenues.
The factor is 0.80: every simulated revenue is multiplied by 80%. The value is taken from Great Britain, the market where Modo Energy observes both the modelled perfect-foresight revenue and the revenue the operational BESS fleet actually earns. The Germany and Poland Indices use the same factor. Dividing a published value by 0.80 gives the uncalibrated, perfect-foresight revenue.
It is applied as a single scalar rather than a market-by-market calibration, to preserve the internal revenue ratios produced by the optimisation. Any change to the factor follows the change process in §7.3.
6. Governance and Compliance
Modo Energy is committed to transparency by providing detailed explanations of calculation methodologies, revenue components, and benchmark updates. All key elements of the methodology are publicly available, ensuring stakeholders can fully understand the benchmark's structure and operation. Transparency measures include:
- Publication of methodology documents outlining calculation processes and revenue components.
- Historical data updates to maintain accuracy and consistency.
- Advance notice of material methodology changes in line with §7.3.
- A contact point for questions about the methodology: team@modoenergy.com.
7. Methodology changes
7.1 Model versioning: the Stable Version
The published industry-wide Indices are computed using a single designated version of the Global Dispatch Model (the "Stable Version"), regardless of when an index was created.
7.2 Review and update process
The methodology is reviewed when market rules, market conditions or data availability change, and when inputs or results look out of line. Any change that follows goes through §7.3.
Direct back-testing against observed transaction data is not possible because per-asset revenue is not publicly disclosed in the Netherlands. Modo Energy therefore applies a capture rate (§5.10) informed by fleet performance in markets where both perfect-foresight modelled revenues and realised asset earnings are observable, such as Great Britain and ERCOT.
7.3 Material and non-material changes
A change is material where it moves the Index by more than ±2% cumulatively in a calendar quarter. Material changes are announced with not less than 30 days' written notice before they take effect, together with an impact analysis.
Other changes are non-material. They may be made without prior consultation and are disclosed as soon as practicable.
Emergency changes needed to protect the integrity of the benchmark or to comply with law may be made without prior consultation, with notice given as promptly as circumstances permit.
All changes are recorded, with their effective date, in the change log (Appendix I).
7.4 Recalculation and result versions
When a Stable Version update is implemented, Index values for the preceding 365 days are recalculated under the new Stable Version. Only the current version of results is available at any time.
8. Consistency and continuity
8.1 Quality assurance
Modo Energy uses these checks:
- Automated validation checks to identify discrepancies in input data.
- Automated regression tests on every change to the Global Dispatch Model.
8.2 Data integrity
Data integrity is maintained through:
- Secure data management protocols, including access controls and regular backups.
- Clear traceability from raw source (EPEX SPOT, Regelleistung, ENTSO-E, TenneT) into the model feed.
8.3 Late, missing or distorted data
The Index for a delivery day is published only once the inputs in §4.2 are available for that day; the two-day lag in §2.5 allows for this. Inputs are used as published, including extreme prices. The only adjustments are these:
- A short gap inside a price series takes the last published value.
- An FCR block price above €4,000/MW is treated as a publication fault and replaced with the German price from the same coupled auction.
- Quarter-hours with less than 50 MW of aFRR energy offered are treated as gaps in the activation cap, which then uses the previous quarter-hour (§5.6).
- Where TenneT's bid ladder does not reach the forecast depth, the realised price is used beyond the optimisation window (§5.7).
- The aFRR capacity price ceiling limits the effect of a few very high accepted bids (§5.8).
If a source corrects data for a period already published, the Index for that period may be recalculated (§2.5).
8.4 Traceability and verification
Modo Energy ensures all benchmark calculations are fully traceable and verifiable through:
- Maintaining comprehensive records of input data, Stable Version, and calculation outputs.
- Reproducibility: every published Index value can be reproduced from the archived input data and the Stable Version in use at the time of publication.
- Public disclosure of material methodology changes.
9. Limitations
The Index is a simulation. These are its main limits:
- Simulated, not measured. It shows what a representative asset could have earned, not what any real battery earned. Per-asset revenue is not public in the Netherlands, so the Index cannot be back-tested against real results (§7.2).
- Foresight. The model knows day-ahead, intraday auction and capacity prices when it decides, and aFRR energy prices two hours ahead (§5.3). The 0.80 calibration factor that corrects for this comes from Great Britain; it has not been observed in the Netherlands (§5.10).
- Shallow markets. TenneT contracts 55 MW of FCR, and the 4-hour aFRR book was 46 MW upward and 50 MW downward at launch. The Index assumes the asset's bids would not move prices and are always selected in full (§1.2, §5.8).
- Expected aFRR activation. The 7% share is a modelling assumption, set close to the 7.7% of offered upward aFRR energy TenneT activated from October 2025 to September 2026, not observed bidding behaviour. It guards the optimisation against selling upward aFRR that could not be delivered, and is priced at the day-ahead price in the optimisation only (§5.6).
- aFRR limits. The replay behind the limits in §5.4.2 and §5.4.3 lets the wholesale position rebalance from the next quarter-hour. A real trader also has to anticipate activation and trade ahead of it, which the optimiser does not do perfectly; this is one reason for the 0.80 calibration factor (§5.10).
- aFRR energy. The activation cap reflects how much of TenneT's bid ladder was activated, so it represents an average bidder. A real asset's activation depends on its own bid prices (§5.6).
- Concentrated inputs. Each input comes from a single source: TenneT for all aFRR data, Regelleistung for FCR, EPEX SPOT for wholesale prices. An error or change at that source flows into the Index (§4.2).
- One asset design. 10 MW, full grid connection, no grid fees, no degradation and 50% state of charge at midnight. The revenue streams in §3.2, such as imbalance and mFRR, are not included.
- Changing market design. The history spans the move to 15-minute day-ahead prices and from the Daily to the 4-hour aFRR product (§2.6), so values before and after these dates are not fully comparable.
Appendix I — Methodology changes
All changes, material and non-material, are recorded here with their effective date.
| Change | Effective date | Previous methodology | Updated methodology | Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Initial publication | October 2026 | — | First publication of the ME vBESS NL Indices (1H, 2H, 4H). | 1.0 |
| aFRR updates | 3 November 2026 | 10% expected aFRR activation, held in SOC in every step. aFRR up and down each capped at rated power only. | 7% expected activation, held in SOC before real time only and priced at day-ahead; in real time, the SOC follows actual aFRR activation (§5.6). aFRR up + down capped by duration (§5.4.2); aFRR up capped by charging power, aFRR down by discharging power (§5.4.3). | 1.1 |
Disclaimer
This document, including the methodologies and indices described herein, is the proprietary work of MODO ENERGY LIMITED ("Modo Energy") and is provided solely for informational purposes. These indices are designed for use in financial analysis, benchmarking, and decision-making. However, they do not constitute investment advice or a recommendation regarding any specific financial instrument, asset, or strategy.
While Modo Energy strives to ensure the accuracy, reliability, and transparency of the indices and methodologies, all information is provided "as is", without any express or implied warranties, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Users should be aware that the indices are derived from publicly available market data that may be subject to revisions, delays, or inaccuracies, and that the Netherlands Indices are simulated from a representative asset rather than observed from underlying transactions. Past performance is not indicative of future results, and external factors such as regulatory changes, market conditions, and asset-specific characteristics may impact index performance.
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