GB batteries earned £64k/MW/year over June to August 2026. That is exactly what they earned over the same three months of 2025. However, during summer 2026 gas prices have been 50% higher than either of the last two summers, and power prices have climbed as a result. Meanwhile, negative prices have diminished this summer, with just 82 hours throughout 2026. As a result, batteries have looked to the Balancing Mechanism to import their cheapest energy.

With gas and power prices so high, you would expect Balancing Mechanism income to climb with it. This hasn't happened.

The reason is dispatch. Batteries put more than twice as much offer volume in front of NESO this summer as last, and NESO took almost exactly the same amount of it. Despite all the work going into improving dispatch rates for batteries as part of the Open Balancing Platform, dispatch rates are worsening.

Gas and power prices are climbing

The front-month TTF contract averaged €54.5/MWh from June to August, up from €34.8 last year and €35.8 the year before. By the end of August the gas price reached €69.8/MWh, its highest since January 2023.

Summer is when European storage gets refilled, and injection demand competes with everything else on the system. We saw the same impact on gas prices during the Russian gas crisis in 2022, when gas prices exceeded €300/MWh in August.

Power has followed. Across all hours, power averaged 54% above last summer, and the average daily peak rose from £105/MWh to £158/MWh.

Negative prices stopped arriving

The other half of a battery's spread is how cheaply it can charge, and that has been more expensive.

June to August 2026 saw 28 hours of negative day-ahead prices compared to 54 in 2025 and 81 in 2024.

Hot weather lifted daytime demand, which is exactly when solar would otherwise push prices below zero. The continent also helped less, with French nuclear running at low availability for much of the summer due to the extreme heat, plus a reduction in available hydropower.