The BESS Book: A Cell to Grid Guide to Utility-Scale Battery Energy Storage Systems

by Drew Lebowitz, Sean Daly, Swetha Sundaram

520 pages, Paperback

Published June 11, 2024

Reviews

[Michael Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thorough. May not be the fastest way to learn everything about BESS given LLMs, but this way forces you to take your time with each section and really get into it, while not being overly in the weeds. It was helpful as someone without a power or construction background.

[Syavash Kazemi Neira · Rating 3 out of 5]

The BESS Book provides a high-level overview of the utility-scale BESS landscape. It’s a "sea an inch deep". If you know absolutely nothing about BESS or utility projects, this is a solid first approximation. However, if you are looking for a deep dive into battery chemistry, power electronics, energy markets, or infrastructure investment, I would recommend seeking out specialized texts instead. It’s a good starting point, but don’t expect a masterclass.

As an electrical engineer and product manager working on residential batteries and Virtual Power Plants (VPPs), I was looking for ways to better model financial investments and improve optimization models for arbitrage and stacked services for utilities. Unfortunately, this was the wrong book for that.

Furthermore, in fast-moving areas like VPPs and EV charging, the content already feels dated. It has a very short shelf life. For the other areas it should be fine for you to get started.