• Markets: ERCOT, Texas and NORD, Italy
  • Backtests on real prices, May 2025 to Aug 2026
  • Read-only. We never switch your equipment
International Batteries
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Run on-site generation when it pays

Factories with gas engines or CHP decide every hour whether to make power or buy it. The answer depends on gas and grid prices, heat demand, starts, permits and carbon. The plan weighs all of them together.

Submit site dataEngine vs grid calculator
DatasheetIndustry
Markets
ERCOT (Texas), NORD (Italy)
Sites
Steel, food, chemicals, campuses
Assets
CHP, gas turbines, engines, boilers, batteries
Limits
Heat demand, permits, starts, ramp rates
To start
Meter export, gas bills, unit nameplates

Engine vs grid

In 2025, how often did your engines beat the grid?

Enter your unit's heat rate and costs. The calculator compares its running cost with the ERCOT hub price in every hour of 2025, using that day's Henry Hub gas price.

Engine vs grid, every hour of 2025

ERCOT and Henry Hub, real prices

MMBtu per MWh
Reciprocating engines run about 8 to 10; gas turbines 9 to 12.
$ per MMBtu
What you pay above Henry Hub: transport, basis and margin.
$ per MWh
$ per MWh
The boiler fuel you save per MWh of power, if you use the heat.
Hours the engine was cheaperLoading
Average running costLoading
Value per MW a yearLoading
Fig. 1Share of hours each month when running the engine cost less than the ERCOT hub price.

Hub prices: Source: ERCOT (HB_HUBAVG, hourly mean of 15-minute prices). Gas: EIA Henry Hub daily spot, carried over weekends. "Value per MW" adds up the hourly gap for one MW run only when it is cheaper; it ignores starts, minimum run times, heat demand and permits, which the full plan includes.

Units and permits

Every unit, its run hours and its permit

The plan decides which units run each hour, counts starts and run hours, and checks NOx against emergency, standard-permit and major-source limits.

Units online by hour for the modeled site.
Fig. 2Units online, hour by hour.
When are engines cleaner than the grid: average ERCOT carbon intensity by hour against on-site gas emissions.
Fig. 3When engines are cleaner than the grid, by hour.
Run hours and permits per unit, annualized from the plan.
Fig. 4Run hours and emissions per unit against permit limits, annualized from the plan.

On-site gas emits 0.44 to 0.53 t CO2 per MWh, more than the ERCOT grid average of 0.30 in every hour of the backtest. Running engines saves money and adds carbon. The console shows both and can re-plan the day with an internal carbon price.

Backtest

Results in Texas and Italy

Modeled sites on real prices. The optimizer adds most where the plant is larger than the site needs and its heat is used. Where the CHP is always worth running, it adds little.

Site (modeled)MarketInternational BatteriesBest common ruleSaving
Steel mini-mill, 80 MW load, 25 MW CHP turbineERCOT$29.86M$31.78M6.1%
Food plant A, Emilia-Romagna, gas-turbine trigenerationNORD€15.40M a year€16.14M (baseload)4.6%
Food plant B, Emilia-Romagna, gas turbine with fired boilerNORD€10.68M a year€10.72M (baseload)0.3%

Texas: 1 May 2025 to 23 Aug 2026, including peak charges. Italy: 1 Jan 2025 to 5 Oct 2026, per year, with the 2026 Italian cost stack: grid charges, the monthly power charge, white certificates and EU carbon allowances. Food plants A and B are real CHP sites modeled from public permits and reports; their loads are scaled to published totals where available and assumed otherwise. Not customer results.

Next step

Send your gas bills and unit nameplates

With a meter export, a year of gas bills and the nameplate of each unit, we can replay your year against the way you run the plant today.

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