230. The growing complexity of battery fleet management - May26

The BESS market is growing at a phenomenal pace. You would think battery management is becoming easier. The reality? It is becoming increasingly complex.
Between data risks, a growing number of suppliers, vertically disintegrated component chains, and constantly evolving software stacks, investors can quickly lose control of their battery fleets.
Only a handful of companies truly operate in the fast-maturing field of battery analytics. And we are not talking about market optimisation focused on financial returns, but deep predictive analytics: understanding what happens inside the system itself, with expertise in battery health, performance, and safety.

Laurent and Gerard have the privilege of welcoming Stephan Rohr, CEO of TWAICE (twaice.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com), one of Germany’s leading battery analytics companies.TWAICE has become a major player in recent years: more than 100 employees, including battery scientists, chemists, software engineers, and data scientists, with operations across Europe, the US, and Asia.
The company has raised over €60m in equity from leading investors including Energize, Coatue, and Creandum (early investor in Spotify), alongside €25m in debt financing from the EIB.

With Stephan, we explored the new complexity of battery fleet management — all the way down to the individual cell. Why BESS is a completely different beast from solar? Why is the excellence in operations becoming the real competitive edge? How to address hardware and software sovereignty challenges? And ultimately, the 20-year question: these assets will remain on the grid for decades. You need to build the operational infrastructure for that reality today — not patch it together later.

A highly informative — and delightfully geeky — conversation about managing battery fleet complexity.