Battery Power & Storage Systems

A custom Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) from Sievert Electric can dramatically lower your electric bills by shaving demand charges and capacity costs, qualify for federal and State tax incentives that cover a large portion of the project cost, earn revenue through Grid Services and rebates, and boost your facility’s operational resiliency.

Why Install a Battery on Your Commercial Property?

How to Get Started

Just send us your electric bill and we’ll design a customized system with recommendations specific to your property’s needs. It’s that simple.
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A “Behind the Meter” Battery Energy Storage System is a rechargeable battery installed on the customer-owned side of your electric meter, tied into your main electrical service. Instead of connecting straight to the utility’s grid, a BTM battery lives “inside” your facility’s power-load:

It charges from the grid during off-peak or lower-cost hours.

• It discharges into your building during expensive peak hours or when the grid is stressed.
• It can also provide backup power for critical loads during an outage, depending on how it’s designed.

Commercial battery systems arrive fully assembled with: Lithium-ion battery cells, a bi-directional power inverter, power controls, protective relays, and an Energy Management System that decides when to charge and discharge. These systems are fully enclosed in a steel container and sizes range from a medium storage unit to multiple shipping containers (1500 sq ft – 1/2 acre total space needed).

Benefits for Commercial Property Owners

For large commercial property owners, a properly designed BTM battery can create value in several ways at once.

1. Lower Demand Charges and Capacity Costs

Large commercial electric bills contain demand and transmission charges (fees based on your highest kW-power draw in a billing period) plus capacity charges tied to how much power you use when the Grid is the most stressed.

A BTM battery can:

• Shave your peaks by discharging during those “spike” moments when your building’s load surges.
• Reduce your billed demand (kW) and capacity tag, which can translate into meaningful, recurring savings on every bill.

Over a year, this can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, especially those with intermittent high loads (manufacturing, cold storage, event venues, big HVAC or process loads).

2. Hedge Against Volatile Energy Prices

Hourly mismatches in energy supply and demand create time-based rates and price volatility. Charging your battery when prices are low and discharging when they’re high is called energy arbitrage. For you, that means:

• More control over your energy supply cost per kWh.
• The flexibility to pair storage with time-of-use (TOU) or hourly pricing programs and squeeze more value out of smart rate design.

3. Backup Power and Resilience

Depending on your facility’s needs, your BTM battery can also:

• Support critical loads during outages (IT rooms, life-safety systems, refrigeration, elevators, emergency lighting, etc.).
• Provide Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) for short disturbances that might otherwise trip sensitive equipment or cause costly downtime.
• Integrate with existing or planned generators or manual-behavioral strategies for layered resilience.

Instead of thinking of storage as “just a bill-saver,” you get a resilience asset that protects revenue and operations when the grid has problems.

4. Future-Proofing Your Building

• It prepares your electrical system for EV charging, electrified heating, and other load growth.
• It lays the foundation to add solar if your local grid is “at capacity” meaning it cannot handle any more exported power.
• It improves your building’s sustainability profile, helping with ESG goals, tenant expectations, and corporate reporting.

In many cases, adding storage is a faster and cheaper way to manage new load than upgrading utility service or rebuilding the entire electrical backbone of the building.

A “Front-of-the-Meter” Battery Energy Storage System is a large-scale battery installed on the utility-owned side of the electric meter, directly connected to the power grid. Instead of serving a single building or customer, an FTM battery supports the entire grid:

• It charges from the grid during times of excess energy or low prices.
• It discharges back into the grid during high-demand periods, price spikes, or when the grid needs stability.
• It provides essential grid services like frequency regulation and balancing supply/demand.
• Requires 1/4-1/2 acre to construct.

Benefits for Grid Operators and Utilities

While BTM focuses on customer-side savings and resilience, FTM acts as a grid asset—delivering benefits across many users, stabilizing the system, and unlocking utility-scale revenue opportunities. A properly designed FTM BESS creates value at the grid level, generating revenue through wholesale markets and supporting broader energy goals. Benefits for grid operators and utilities include:

Sievert Electric can help you evaluate whether a BTM or FTM battery makes sense for your specific building, design a code-compliant system that integrates cleanly with your existing infrastructure, and guide you through the incentive and interconnection process from start to finish. All we need to start is a copy of your electric bill.