The energy trader Danske Commodities has been appointed by BW ESS to trade and optimise the whole of the 200 MW / 857 MWh Berkswell BESS near Solihull under a 10-year floor agreement. The four-hour battery, which entered construction in September 2026, is expected to begin operation in the fourth quarter of 2027.
Click here for a quick project snapshot
BW ESS, a Zurich-based energy storage owner-operator, has entrusted the trading of its Berkswell BESS, a 200 MW / 857 MWh project near Solihull in the English Midlands, to Danske Commodities for 10 years. The deal was made public on 6 October 2026, and it takes in every megawatt of what is one of the largest battery projects in Britain.
Danske Commodities is to trade and optimise the whole battery on the basis of a floor agreement, which both parties have called a significant milestone on the road to commercial operation. Building work started in September 2026, and the first power is due in the closing quarter of 2027. BW ESS had found and developed the site itself, and it now shares ownership with AIP Management, an energy and decarbonisation investor.
The size and the duration of the battery explain why a long-term trading partner has been sought. Four hours of storage will place Berkswell among the longest-duration battery sites in the country, and when it is running, it should be able to serve around 700,000 homes for as long as four hours. It is meant to soak up electricity when generation is plentiful and to return it to the grid when demand climbs. As the site sits close to large centres of demand, that flexibility will be on hand where the network has the greatest need of it. The project is expected to use the PowerTitan 3 technology of Sungrow.
Both companies have emphasised the commercial certainty that the agreement provides. "This agreement with Danske Commodities provides a strong commercial foundation for Berkswell and helps unlock the long-term value of this strategically important energy storage project," said Kilian Leykam, Chief Commercial Officer of BW ESS. He added that, with construction under way, the company was "another step closer" to bringing the project online. Jakob Sørensen, Chief Executive Officer of Danske Commodities, said that the trader would draw on more than 15 years of experience in British power markets to maximise the value of the asset, and that it would provide the flexibility needed to integrate intermittent renewable generation.
For Danske Commodities, the United Kingdom is a core market, and Sørensen has described Berkswell as an important addition to the company's growing portfolio of flexible assets. The trader, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Norwegian energy company Equinor, completes more than 130,000 trades each day across more than 40 countries.
BW ESS is part of BW Group, and it is active in the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Germany, Spain and Sweden. The company has more than 540 MWh of operating BESS, about 12 GWh that is under construction or in pre-construction, and a development pipeline of several gigawatts.