As with any emerging technology, there has been no shortage of new records being set in the battery space over the last 5 years or so. The headlines trickle in all the time, Largest BESS in [Country A] Operational Today, First Utility-Scale Battery Paired With [Technology X] Begins Construction, etc. And of course, records for peak discharge from the battery fleet occur several times each year as new capacity comes online:

Figure 1 – Running maximum of ERCOT BESS discharge (high water mark)

The ERCOT battery fleet has been growing rapidly in recent years. In addition to simply having more batteries, those batteries have recently grown larger than the addressable ancillary markets[1], so we see ERCOT BESS increasingly turning to the RT energy markets to earn money via energy arbitrage, rather than sitting on the sidelines collecting ancillary payments. This means the average battery is putting more MWhs of energy onto the grid each day now than we saw in 2023 and before, and there are also more MWs of batteries installed. Between these two factors, it’s no surprise that we saw the battery generation record broken 6 times in 2024, and once already in 2025.

However, there was something special about the new record of 4578 MW discharge that occurred on the morning of this writing (Feb 20^th). It was the first time that we have seen a discharge record set in the morning[2], at 7:15 AM to be precise. It corresponded to higher than normal morning energy prices, but nothing astronomical.