IN Brief:
- BESS Perlen AG is installing a 10MW/20MWh battery at the Perlen Papier industrial site.
- ADS-TEC Energy will supply the system while wattss Group manages technical and market integration.
- Ancillary services are the initial commercial target, followed by day-ahead and intraday electricity trading.
Perlen Industrieholding AG and the Valyou Investment Foundation are developing a 10MW/20MWh battery storage system through their BESS Perlen AG joint venture at the Perlen Papier industrial site in Switzerland. ADS-TEC Energy will supply the storage system, while Swiss project developer wattss Group is responsible for project management, technical integration, and market integration. Commissioning is planned by the end of 2026.
The two-hour battery is intended to turn part of the site’s electrical infrastructure into a flexible market asset rather than serve only as passive plant capacity. Its first commercial role will be participation in ancillary-services markets, with day-ahead and intraday electricity trading planned later. That sequence provides a defined route into operation while leaving room to broaden the revenue stack once the battery, site interface, and market-control systems have been proven together.
BESS Perlen AG was established by Perlen Industrieholding and Valyou to invest in long-term energy-storage infrastructure and operate it over an extended period. The project combines an industrial host site, institutional investment capital, a specialist battery supplier, and a developer responsible for technical and commercial integration. Instead of treating the battery as a standalone merchant project on undeveloped land, the partners are inserting storage into an existing industrial location with established electrical demand and infrastructure.
The 10MW power rating and 20MWh energy capacity give the system a nominal two-hour discharge duration at full output. That configuration suits applications requiring rapid changes in power over relatively short periods, including balancing services and intraday trading. It also gives the operator scope to reserve part of the state of charge for one service while using remaining capacity elsewhere, although the dispatch strategy will still have to account for degradation, efficiency, connection limits, and the operating needs of the wider site.
ADS-TEC Energy is supplying the battery equipment using technology developed through its work in lithium-ion storage, power electronics, and energy-management systems. wattss Group will coordinate the project from development through technical integration and market participation, a role that becomes more important when an industrial battery is expected to earn revenue across several electricity-market products. Metering, controls, dispatch logic, grid-compliance functions, and commercial optimisation all have to operate together if the physical storage capacity is to translate into dependable flexibility.
The Perlen project enters a Swiss market where the transmission system operator is preparing for a larger role for battery storage. Swissgrid has identified batteries as a source of ancillary services and has been developing technical and market arrangements for integrating more storage into the electricity system. A revised imbalance-energy pricing mechanism introduced from the start of 2026 also places a clearer value on deviations between scheduled and actual energy positions.
At 10MW, the Perlen battery is below the 150MVA threshold at which Swissgrid says storage installations are generally connected directly to the extra-high-voltage transmission system. Projects of this scale are therefore more likely to use distribution-level infrastructure while still participating commercially in system services where qualification rules allow. Industrial-site batteries can add flexibility without every installation becoming a new transmission-connected asset, although local connection capacity and protection arrangements remain important constraints.
Perlen Industrieholding is positioning the battery as the first step in a broader transformation of the site. The group’s core activities include Perlen Papier, but it is also developing additional industrial uses and sees energy infrastructure as another source of value. Storage can support that strategy by creating a controllable electrical asset on a site that already has industrial loads, space, grid infrastructure, and operational staff, reducing some of the development hurdles faced by greenfield projects.
How far the battery will eventually be coordinated with paper-mill demand has not been specified, and behind-the-meter peak management is not part of the stated initial commercial plan. The operating sequence is narrower: ancillary services first, followed by wider wholesale-market participation. That gives the asset a defined market role from commissioning rather than relying on an indiscriminate list of possible storage applications.
Industrial sites are attractive locations for batteries because they can combine existing electrical infrastructure with land, large loads, and access to several flexibility markets. Perlen’s 10MW/20MWh system is modest beside utility-scale projects measured in hundreds of megawatts, but its structure is directly relevant to industrial energy management. If commissioning proceeds by year-end, the project will test whether a traditional manufacturing location can add energy-market participation as a durable operating activity alongside its core production business.
