How Native Control Systems Compromise BESS Asset Availability & Revenue Opportunities

Today, most battery energy storage systems (BESS) consistently fall short of operators’ expectations, both in performance and available capacity. Together, this spells missed revenue opportunities (and ultimately limited profitability) for BESS asset operators and owners. 

But it’s not the batteries that cause the problems. Rather, in most cases, BESS performance degrades, asset availability shrinks, and revenue opportunities evaporate as a result of inherent flaws in native control systems. 

How do native control systems undermine BESS operations? And what does that mean for operators’ ability to maximize asset value? Here’s what you need to know: 

2 reasons why native control systems undermine BESS applications

Native control systems produce unreliable estimates and inaccurate derating forecasts—a costly combination for asset operators who seek to maximize availability and revenue. This is why: 

Unreliable estimates

Accurate, real-time estimates of battery energy and power are foundational to successful BESS operations. Asset operators rely on SoC (State of Charge), SoE (State of Energy), and SoP (State of Power) to make operational decisions and determine market participation strategies. 

Oddly, most native control systems are unable to consistently provide reliable estimates. 

In most cases, native BMS estimates of available energy and power are off by more than 15%. In extreme cases, that number can climb as high as 90%. 

These unreliable state estimates put asset operators in a no-win situation: 

• Overestimation risks setpoint deviations and failed market commitments—and associated financial penalties.
• Underestimation leaves surplus energy untapped, reducing dispatchable power and limiting profitability. 

Either way, native control systems’ inability to provide consistent, reliable state estimates degrades BESS asset performance and causes operators to miss out on opportunities to generate revenue. 

Inability to forecast derating

Native control systems are also unable to forecast derating behavior, i.e., how much capacity or power will naturally decrease as the system degrades over time.

This creates uncertainty and operational risks for asset operators.

Without accurate insight into when or how much a system will derate, derating can present as a sudden drop in availability capacity, often leading to:

• Disrupted dispatch plans
• Unexpected downtime
• More missed revenue opportunities

To compensate, operators often impose wide safety margins of 10+% on either end of the SoC operating range. But while these conservative strategies may prevent violations, they also limit usable capacity, thereby reducing dispatchable energy and limiting revenue potential. 

What this means for BESS asset availability and revenue opportunities

Unreliable estimates and unpredictable derating are not minor inconveniences or isolated technical flaws. They have a direct and measurable impact on BESS performance, availability, and revenue generation. 

When operators can’t trust energy or power estimates, they risk overcommitment or underutilization. Similarly, when derating is unpredictable, they’re forced to adopt overly cautious operating strategies that limit capacity and cut into margins. 

Both outcomes leave energy—and revenue—on the table. 

Conclusion: Native control systems limit BESS profitability—here’s what to use instead

Native control systems are actually ill suited to support modern BESS asset operations. With unreliable estimates and the inability to forecast derating, they leave operators working with incomplete information and critical data gaps that undermine performance, reduce availability, and, ultimately, limit revenue generation. 

But there are other options. 

Zitara Power delivers accurate, real-time control signals, including SoC, SoE, and SoP. Unlike native control systems, Zitara Power empowers BESS asset operators to make strategic, informed market decisions based on high-fidelity data that maximizes both availability and revenue opportunities. 

Learn more about the challenges BESS asset operators face in performance, availability, and revenue generation—and discover the new approach to balancing and state estimation in the technical white paper: Maximizing Asset Availability with Zitara for BESS.