​Revenues for battery energy storage systems (BESS) in ERCOT are expected to settle at $2.03/kW in October 2025, a 40% decrease from October 2024.
For August 2025, final disclosure data confirms batteries earned $2.27/kW - 69% lower than August 2024.
Revenue opportunities continued to decline year-over-year, with Real-Time price spreads and average Ancillary Service clearing prices decreasing by 14% and 45%, respectively. This is despite increases in peak and average demand of 4 and 5%, respectively.
The largest anticipated decrease in revenues is in Ancillary Services, where revenues are expected to have decreased from $1.52/kW-month in October 2024, to $0.50/kW-month in October 2025.
​Find last month’s report here.
Subscribers to Modo Energy’s Research can read the full article to explore:
- The system fundamentals driving revenues in October, and how these compare to last year.
- Which batteries held the largest revenue opportunities.
- Where settlement data shows batteries earned revenues in August.
- How 1-, 1.5-, and 2-hour battery capture rates compare - and which optimizers performed the best.
- A full data download of all charts
For any questions on the content in this article, reach out to ovais@modoenergy.com.
ERCOT Nowcast | October 2025: $2.03/kW-month
Suppressed price spreads across the Day-Ahead Energy (-38%) and Real-Time Energy (-14%) markets are expected to decrease grid-scale battery revenues by 40% year-over-year.
Average Day-Ahead and Real-Time price spreads - the difference between the top and bottom hour of prices in each market - fell to $61/MWh and $71/MWh. This is despite drivers for spreads improving, including peak net load rising by 4%, and gas prices increasing by 41%.
Spreads fell because of rising minimum prices and lower maximum prices, squeezing the arbitrage opportunity at both ends.
Why minimum prices rose - making charging more expensive
Mid-morning net load - when solar generation begins to peak and net load tends to be at its low point - stayed consistent year-over-year at 26 GW, despite an increase in solar generation (+1.7 GW). An increase in around-the-clock average demand (+2.8 GW) offset this increase in solar generation.
The rise in demand was in part due to increased battery charging. Average daily peak charging rose from 1.7 GW to 3.3 GW, leading to the rise in prices during charging hours.
Why peak prices declined, dampening revenues
Peak net load rose by 2 GW (52 GW → 54GW), but this was matched and exceeded by evening net battery output, which grew by 2.4 GW.
Thermal generation outages in ERCOT increased to 14 GW in October as Texas begins its maintenance season for the winter.
Without gas peaking plants competing to provide dispatchable power, system-wide peak prices are less dependent on rising gas costs and more on energy offers from batteries.
Batteries more frequently set the Energy price during the peak-price hours of the day - generally the early evening - when a higher proportion of natural gas generation is on outage. Additionally, total installed capacity grew by more than 4 GW year-over-year. This meant that batteries offered to provide energy in these intervals at increasingly competitive prices.
As a result, batteries reduced peak prices and cannibalized their own opportunity.
Price spreads continue to remain high in the West at $3.4/kW-month
Batteries in ERCOT’s West Load Zone continue to see the highest median spreads, owing to high solar buildout in the region. High consumption from around-the-clock sources of demand like oil & gas producers in the Permian Basin also raises peak prices in part of the region during the evening hours.
