CERC CES FIV – July 2026 – Download

Building a Bottom-Up Nodal Price Forecast

Figure 1. Over 3,500 CAISO nodal price forecasts are available on CoMETS Platform.

CES maintains a long-term view on load and resource supply projections for CAISO. These inputs are informed by CPUC Preferred System Plan (PSP) RESOLVE modeling, long-term SB 100 resource targets and projections, and the collective intelligence of CES’s MarketIQ, Wholesale Services, and Retail Services teams. These inputs are the underpinning of CES’s long-term price forecasting methodology, ensuring that every forecast reflects current market fundamentals and pragmatic, research-driven views on future trajectories.

But CAISO is no longer represented just by California. Launched in May 2026, the Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM) has broadened both the supply and demand that CAISO is optimizing for each day. CES incorporates not only PacifiCorp (the current non-CAISO participant), but all committed and projected EDAM participants over the coming years. For each of these participants, CES’s modeling combs through each utility’s Integrated Resource Plan and projected load growth to inform model inputs.

CES applies a rigorous production cost modeling framework to develop long-term, hourly nodal Locational Marginal Price (LMP) forecasts and pairs them with proprietary models, deep market intelligence, and advanced regression methodologies to forecast capacity, ancillary services, and Resource Adequacy prices. Our team leverages industry-standard commercial software in combination with customized economic dispatch models to deliver precise, client-focused forecasting solutions.

Our price forecasting process incorporates:

• 8,760 hourly Nodal LMP forecasts for wholesale energy, covering both Day-Ahead (DA) and Real-Time (RT) markets, over a 30-year horizon for more than 3,500 nodes across the CAISO footprint.
• Hourly Ancillary Services (A/S) price forecasts, including Regulation Up, Regulation Down, Spinning Reserves, and Non-Spinning Reserves, using a regression-based model informed by historical and forecasted installed renewable and storage capacity, load demand, and expected market size by product.
• Annual Resource Adequacy (RA) price forecasts derived from detailed financial modeling of the incoming capacity-eligible resource fleet expected to serve California LSEs through 2055, incorporating BESS capital cost projections, wholesale revenue forecasts, and the premium effects of the Slice-of-Day Framework.
• Basis Risk simulation, allowing users to evaluate locational price separation between node and hub on either a flat, solar-weighted, or wind-weighted basis.
• Near-term benchmarking to publicly traded LMP futures to ensure consistency with liquid market signals; nodal prices calibrated using a machine learning-based framework to capture historical nodal behavior and forecast congestion patterns.

All of these price forecasts, including each of the thousands of nodes and their basis risk, are available on CES’s CoMETS Platform.

Turning Market Complexity Into a Competitive Edge

The problem of forecasting project revenues just got much more complex. Going forward, CAISO’s day-ahead unit commitment problem will now be able to select any resource across any of the participating utilities, and will have to deliver energy to load across multiple states, all while navigating a much larger transmission system. New generation, load, and transmission exponentially increase the optimization problem,  introducing new price drivers, congestion risks, and volatility that will alter price formation not just in these new utilities, but within CAISO itself—changing the outlook for projects already under development. To navigate this new terrain, CES uses its CAISO nodal price forecast, driven by the full EDAM market simulation, as the core input to the CoMETS Platform. CoMETS determines the optimal dispatch of standalone and hybrid storage assets to maximize multi-stack market revenues—including arbitrage, ancillary services, and resource adequacy. CoMETS shows not only the expected revenue, but also the P90 and P10 revenue scenarios. Using Markov chain stochastic price simulation based on historical & forecasted volatility, developers can understand the range of potential outcomes for their projects.

CoMETS revenue modeling serves a range of applications across the project lifecycle. For developers and investors, it provides the foundation for project underwriting—translating nodal price forecasts into project-specific revenue projections that account for a battery’s duration, degradation profile, interconnection node, and operational constraints. Users can view nodal heat maps to site their next project, evaluate basis risk, and test different configurations for maximizing future revenues. For offtake negotiations, CoMETS enables CES to model the revenue impact of contract structures, including tolling agreements, capacity contracts, and RA arrangements, allowing clients to evaluate the tradeoffs between contracted certainty and merchant upside. For projects already in operation, CoMETS dispatch optimization can be used to benchmark actual performance against modeled expectations, identify revenue leakage, and refine bidding strategies in response to evolving market conditions.

The Western grid is in the midst of its most consequential market transformation in decades. For storage developers and investors, the margin between success and failure will increasingly come down to the quality of the analytics behind every investment decision. CoMETS was built for the players navigating this moment, delivering the price intelligence, dispatch optimization, and revenue modeling depth needed to succeed in the most competitive markets.

Reach out to mailto:info@ces-ltd.com to schedule a demo of CoMETS today.

By: Devin Gaby

Copper is emerging as one of the most strategic materials for the global energy transition, driven by rising demand from electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries, renewable energy, power grids, energy storage, AI-driven data centers, and EV charging infrastructure. In batteries, copper is indispensable as the anode current collector and is used across all major chemistries, including LFP, NMC, and LMFP. With battery electric vehicles requiring nearly 60-90 kilograms of copper than conventional vehicles (20-25 kilograms)¹, demand is expected to grow rapidly. In India, expanding giga factories, renewable energy deployment, and electrification are creating significant opportunities for domestic battery-grade copper foil manufacturing. However, rising global copper prices, supply constraints, and continued dependence on imported copper concentrates highlight the need to strengthen India’s domestic mining, refining, and recycling ecosystem to ensure long-term supply security.  

Rising Copper Demand Beyond Electric Vehicles 

Copper is important for more than just electric vehicles. Solar and wind farms use much more copper than traditional power plants. Upgrades to power grids, battery storage systems, AI-powered data centers, and EV charging stations are all pushing global copper demand higher. Because of this, many experts see copper as one of the most important materials for meeting climate and energy transition goals. 

India’s need for copper is growing as the country ramps up lithium-ion battery production, electric vehicle manufacturing, renewable energy projects, and power infrastructure. Battery-grade copper foil, used as the anode-current collector in lithium-ion cells, is a major factor behind this demand. As India builds more factories and moves toward large-scale production, the need for high-purity, ultra-thin copper foil will rise. The industry is also moving to thinner foils to boost energy density and battery performance, making advanced copper foil manufacturing even more important. 

Hindalco Industries has recognised this opportunity and plans to begin producing battery copper foil as part of its strategy to produce key battery materials in India. The company says it is looking into copper foil development as part of its long-term battery materials plan, alongside its investments in battery-grade aluminum foil. 

Even though demand is rising, India still has limited capacity to produce battery-grade copper foil and relies mostly on imported copper ore. This creates a significant opportunity for investment in local copper foil manufacturing, which could strengthen the battery supply chain, improve supply security, and help India’s electric mobility and energy storage goals. 

Copper Price is skyrocketing in 2026 as compared to 2025 

Copper prices are likely to remain much higher in 2026 than in 2025, driven by strong demand and ongoing supply constraints. As shown in the figure below, LME copper prices are expected to rise from about US$9,500-10,000 per ton in late 2025 to over US$13,000-14,000 per ton in 2026, showing a clear upward trend. 

Figure1: Copper LME Prices (US$/Ton), 2025-26 

Source: LME 

This price escalation is primarily driven by accelerating demand from electric vehicles, battery manufacturing, renewable energy projects, grid expansion, AI-driven data centers, and electrification initiatives, all of which are highly copper-intensive. At the same time, global copper mine supply growth remains constrained by declining ore grades, permit delays, geopolitical risks, project execution challenges, and disruptions at major mining operations. Several industry forecasts indicate that the refined copper market is moving into a supply deficit during 2026, while inventories remain relatively tight². Additional support for prices has come from trade policy uncertainty, stockpiling, and concerns about the availability of copper concentrates for smelters. As a result, the structural imbalance between rising demand and limited supply additions is expected to keep copper prices elevated throughout 2026 

Global Copper Mining Landscape: Can Supply Keep Pace? 

Copper mining remains highly concentrated, with Chile as the top producer, accounting for almost a quarter of global output. Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo, China, and the United States follow. Even with large reserves, industry faces significant challenges³. In many older mining areas, ore grades are falling, so miners have to process more rock to get the same amount of copper. In the Year 2025, the World refined copper consumption was 28.20 million tonnes whereas World mine production was 23.20 million tonnes as copper metal & refined copper production was 28.66 million tonnes⁴. As a result, the global copper market is expected to face a structural supply deficit with several forecasts projecting a gap of 5-6 Mt by 2035 if new mining capacity is not developed. 

Environmental permits, community approvals, and infrastructure construction have significantly delayed copper mining projects. It can take over ten years to go from finding a new copper deposit to starting production, so supply can’t keep up with fast-growing demand. Most new copper supply is expected from a few medium-sized projects, like the Cobre Panama Restart, while many others are still being planned or developed. This means copper supply growth could be delayed, raising the risk of shortages just as demand from electric vehicles, renewable energy, grid upgrades, and battery manufacturing is rising. 

Figure2: Copper Project Pipeline Status and Capacity 

Source: Benchmark Minerals 

India has about 1.66 billion tonnes of copper ore resources⁵, but only a small portion can be profitably mined, so the country still depends on imported copper concentrates⁶. Most of the copper mining in India happens in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand, with Hindustan Copper Limited as the main producer HCL’s goal to boost ore production to 12.2 million tonnes per year by 2030-31 from 3.7 million tons (2025-2026) , but it’s unclear how much domestic supply will grow. As demand for electric vehicles, batteries, renewable energy, and power infrastructure rises, India will likely continue to rely on imported copper for the next several years. 

Sulphuric Acid: An Emerging Risk to Copper Production 

Another important issue for copper production is the availability of sulphuric acid. About 20% of the world’s copper is made using the Solvent Extraction-Electrowinning (SX-EW) process⁷, which is common in Chile, the DRC, and parts of the U.S. This method needs 15-45 kg of sulphuric acid per tonne of oxide ore processed, although acid consumption can vary depending on ore characteristics and operating conditions. If sulphur and sulphuric acid become harder to get, production costs could rise, and future copper output could be limited. This is especially important because sulphuric acid is also used in refining lithium, processing nickel, and making cathode materials, so there is competition for it across several battery supply chains⁸. 

The U.S. Refined Copper Tariff Proposal 

One of the most significant developments affecting the copper industry is the proposed tariff structure on imported refined copper in the United States. According to industry discussions, the U.S. administration has suggested implementing a 15% tariff on imported refined copper beginning in 2027, increasing to 30% from 2028 onward⁹. The objective is to encourage domestic investments in smelting and refining while reducing dependence on imported refined copper. Currently, the United States imports nearly half of the copper it consumes, making it vulnerable to global supply disruptions and geopolitical risks.  

Potential Impact on Global Copper Prices and Trade Flows 

The proposed tariffs could have important implications for global copper pricing. The world’s primary copper benchmark, the London Metal Exchange (LME), is a duty-free international price that excludes import tariffs. In contrast, the CME copper market in the United States reflects domestic market conditions and can incorporate the impact of tariffs and duties. If tariffs are implemented, CME copper prices could trade at a significant premium relative to LME prices, creating a divergence between U.S. and international markets. This could encourage shifts in global trade flows, increase arbitrage opportunities, and contribute to greater price volatility across the copper industry.  

Table1: Impact of Tariff on Copper Prices 

Source:¹⁰ 

If the LME copper price is US$13,572 per ton, a 15% tariff would raise the U.S. domestic price to about US$15,608 per ton, adding a premium of around US$2,036 per ton. If the tariff goes up to 30%, the U.S. price would jump to about US$17,644 per ton, more than US$4,000 above the global benchmark¹¹. This shows that copper prices are now shaped not just by supply and demand, but also by trade policies and geopolitics. These tariff-driven premiums can raise costs for industries like electrical equipment, construction, EVs, batteries, and renewable energy. The resulting price differences across regions may also alter global copper trade, encourage stockpiling, boost domestic production, and create uncertainty for manufacturers that rely on imported copper. 

India’s refined copper industry is moving from reliance on imports to greater self-sufficiency as new smelting and refining plants begin operating. After the Sterlite Copper plant closed in 2018, refined copper imports rose sharply, but recent investments by Hindalco, Adani, Vedanta, and Hindustan Copper are now boosting local manufacturing. 

The impact of U.S. copper tariffs on India’s refined copper industry is expected to be mixed, with more indirect effects than direct disruptions. Since India is currently a net importer of refined copper and copper concentrates, the country is less exposed to copper export restrictions than major exporting nations such as Chile and Peru. Industry assessments indicate that the direct impact on India’s copper sector is likely to be limited, as domestic demand exceeds domestic supply and imported raw materials account for a significant share of consumption. 

However, tariffs can affect India in several indirect ways. For example, changes in global trade caused by tariffs can make copper prices more volatile. U.S. buyers might stockpile copper before tariffs take effect, making it harder to find and raising prices worldwide. Later policy changes could cause prices to drop quickly. This kind of price volatility makes it harder for Indian smelters, cable makers, transformer producers, and battery supply chain companies to plan their purchases. 

Implications for the Lithium-Ion Battery Industry 

For the lithium-ion battery industry, higher copper prices could increase costs throughout the value chain. Copper foil manufacturers would face higher raw material costs, which could eventually affect battery cell producers and electric vehicle manufacturers. While copper accounts for only a small share of total battery pack costs compared with cathode materials, sustained increases in copper prices could still affect overall battery economics. Moreover, sectors such as power transmission, renewable energy infrastructure, and data centers consume even larger quantities of copper than battery manufacturing, meaning that elevated copper prices could increase capital expenditure requirements across the broader energy transition ecosystem. 

India’s Opportunity in a Changing Copper Landscape 

India faces both challenges and opportunities as the copper market changes. As the country grows its electric vehicle, battery cell, renewable energy, and data center industries, copper demand will rise sharply. But India still relies on imported copper concentrates and refined copper for many uses. Any problems in the global copper trade or long-term price increases could make it harder for India’s battery and clean energy industries to compete. 

At the same time, this situation gives India a chance to boost its own copper refining, grow copper recycling, invest in making battery-grade copper foil, and build partnerships with major copper-producing countries. As India aims for large-scale battery production and more electric vehicles, copper could become as important as lithium, nickel, graphite, and rare earths. 

Conclusion: Copper’s Strategic Importance in the Energy Transition 

Copper is set to become one of the most important materials for the global energy transition. With demand for electrification rising, long mine development times, possible sulphuric acid shortages, and changing trade policies, copper markets could face more pressure in the next decade. The proposed U.S. tariffs on refined copper are part of a bigger global move toward resource security and local supply chains. For battery makers, car companies, energy developers, and policymakers, making sure there is enough copper will be just as important as securing lithium, nickel, and other battery materials in the push for a more electrified future. 

CERC CES FIV – June 2026 – Download

How CES | BLUE delivered bespoke, enterprise-grade billing for one of the most demanding retail energy clients in the market, no custom development required.

The Challenge

When one of the world’s largest energy companies expanded its retail power operations across multiple

U.S. markets, it brought a level of billing complexity that no other billing platform could handle.

CES|BLUE allows this REP to deliver invoice-level transparency at the most granular detail available to dedicated large industrial and data center energy managers. Every account carries its own highly negotiated pricing structure. Billing runs at 15-minute and hourly intervals. And every month, the BLUE platform processes and produces invoices for thousands of meters simultaneously across four ISO markets.

The numbers tell the story: tens of thousands of complex bills each month, informed by hundreds of thousands of transactions, interval usage data, and detailed ISO settlement reports, where every number is ingested and validated before billing.

But raw volume only tells part of the story. The real complexity lives inside each invoice.

BLUE provides nearly unlimited flexibility to REPs, who can incorporate an unlimited number of distinct ancillary service (AS) bundles into their products, each with an unlimited number of individual components. For this REP, BLUE generates over 60 million distinct AS rates each month, each of which is validated before billing. A typical single pass-through product’s monthly invoice contains 20,000 to 40,000 determinants. For the most complex accounts, BLUE uses over 200,000 determinants to produce a single monthly invoice for an industrial client.

No other outsourced SaaS billing platform can do this. REPs focused on data centers or industrial loads require a system capable of handling extreme data complexity, adapting to market changes without development cycles, and doing it all reliably and transparently, every single month.

Key complexities included:

• Key complexities included: 
• Tens of thousands of meters, each requiring a unique product structure and billing logic 
• Unlimited ancillary service bundles with an unlimited number of components 
• 15-minute and hourly interval data requirements across six ISOs 
• Resettlement billing applied to one-third of all invoices, calculated by market-specific rules 
• Block billing across tens of thousands of invoices per month, with dynamic allocation by hour, fixed percentage, or manual entry 
• Summary billing across multiple legal entities and billing accounts 
• Rapid adaptability required when ISO statements change, as proven during Winter Storm Uri 

The CES | BLUE Solution

Configuration, Not Custom Code

The foundation of the solution was CES | BLUE’s ability to build highly individualized product structures for each account without writing a single line of custom code. Where other platforms treat unique billing requirements as development projects, with queues, timelines, and cost overruns, CES | BLUE treats them as configuration. Fast. Repeatable. Scalable.

This distinction matters more than it might seem. When a client’s needs evolve- new charge codes, ISO rule changes, additional line items- the CES team can adapt in days, not months. No development queue. No change order. Just execution. As CES’ REP clients grow over time, functional requirements generally grow as well: starting with foundational billing, then 15-minute or hourly interval granularity, then full resettlement processing. Each evolution can be delivered through configuration.

Ancillary Services at Unprecedented Scale

CES | BLUE can manage an unlimited number of distinct ancillary service bundles. Each bundle can have a unique set of components spanning sub-hourly, hourly, and daily intervals, across congestion zones, calculation methods, and accounts. New bundles are added to the system as ISO statements change, with no development work required. When Winter Storm Uri reshaped ERCOT’s settlement landscape, CES adapted quickly.

Resettlement Processing

As with this REP, larger end-use customers often require complex resettlement billing, recalculating charges according to market-specific rules after initial settlement. CES | BLUE handles resettlements as a single-dollar net adjustment backed by a full detail sheet, keeping the client’s finance and operations teams aligned without producing invoice chaos.

Block Billing Across the Portfolio

As with this REP, larger end-use customers often require pricing structures which include physical blocks, fixed-for-floating financial swaps, heat-rate blocks, and custom-designed block types. CES | BLUE allocates blocks to billing accounts dynamically by hour using load-ratio share methodology, or by fixed percentage, or by manually entered allocations. Portfolio subsets can be adjusted daily, and block sizes can vary by time of day.

Summary Billing and Multi-Entity Management

Across hundreds of accounts under multiple legal entities, CES | BLUE enables consolidated summary billing without sacrificing line-item granularity at the meter level. Finance teams get the executive view they need; operations teams get the detail they require. One platform, one workflow.

Billing Progress Tracking

CES implemented workflow queue technology within CES | BLUE, giving the operations team real-time visibility into billing cycle progress, exception flags, and setup issues aggregated into focused queues instead of scattered across manual reports. Billing cycles stay on schedule. Problems surface before they become delays.

Billing on Estimates with Actual True-Up

Where settlement data is delayed, CES | BLUE allows billing to proceed on estimates with automatic true-up once final data arrives. This keeps cash flow aligned with usage and reduces accounts receivable exposure, representing a meaningful advantage when processing tens of thousands of invoices per month.

Key Differentiators

No other platform could do this.

Across every ISO and every billing scenario presented by this REP, the answer from other vendors was the same: custom development. More time. More cost. More risk. CES said yes and delivered through configuration.

The Bottom Line

This REP serving industrial loads and data centers chose CES because no other vendor could meet their needs. No delays. No SLA failures.

This is what complex billing mastery looks like in practice. And CES is the partner built to get it right, every month, at scale.

Connect with us to see how we can help you with your complex billing needs: https://ces-ltd.com/contact-us/

Today, Brandon is Director of Market Operations at Customized Energy Solutions, where he oversees a control room managing more than 546 active resources and 31,300 megawatts of generation. But his path to that seat started not with a five-year plan, but with family.

Growing up, Brandon watched relatives work as operators at Atlantic City Electric and PECO. Their careers planted a seed. When it came time to choose a direction, he pursued mechanical engineering before pivoting to economics — drawn equally to how systems work and how markets move. That combination, it turned out, was exactly what the energy industry needed.

“I had environmental economics classes, robotics, engineering,” he recalls. “And even in high school, we were working with solar cells. Wind and renewables felt like the future.” When an opportunity to join CES right out of college presented itself, he took it — and never looked back.

Brandon came in as an operator, working night shifts and learning the grid from the ground up. Those early years were formative in ways he still carries. He remembers working through Hurricane Sandy, water coming through the roof, emergencies cascading across the grid. “It looked very different then,” he says, “both in our scope and what we did with clients.” But those high-pressure moments shaped both his instincts and his appreciation for what the operations center has become.

Over the years, he has grown alongside CES — from a small-scale operation handling a handful of units to the control room that exists today. A defining chapter in that journey was the move of the Market Operations Center from the 22nd floor to its current home on the 19th, purpose-built as a state-of-the-art facility and a genuine showpiece for the company. “There’s an immense amount of pride in that,” Brandon says. “Seeing it go from 11 assets at around 1,000 megawatts to where we are now — 546 active resources and 31,300 megawatts.” The growth isn’t just a number on a slide. It’s something he helped build, shift by shift, year by year.

More recently, he led the expansion of CES’s scheduling coordinator operations and the integration of Grid BOOST coordination, adding new structural layers to an already complex operation. What keeps Brandon motivated isn’t just the scale — it’s the people around him. He describes CES as an unusually deep talent pool, full of long-tenured industry experts who continue to challenge and teach him. “You should never be the smartest person in the room,” he says, “and I don’t think that will ever happen here.”

It’s a philosophy rooted in humility; one he would pass along to anyone considering a career in energy: stay curious, ask questions, and resist the temptation to over-specialize. “The industry moves, technologies change, regulations change. A diverse skill set will take you further.”

Outside of work, Brandon is a devoted family man and an avid golfer — equal parts competitive and meditative, depending on the shot. He and his wife have two young sons, ages five and three, and when he’s not at the course, he’s likely at the beach with his family or out fishing.

And yes, the DJ equipment is still within reach. Old friends and colleagues still call, and when they do, Brandon is usually willing to dust off the headphones. Some skills, it turns out, never really leave you — whether you’re managing a dance floor or a control room, the job is the same: keep things running smoothly and know when to turn up the energy.

Introduction 

The push for electrification often focuses on securing minerals such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and rare-earth elements. As demand for electric vehicles, energy storage, and renewable energy grows, governments and industries are spending billions to secure these resources. Yet another key material often goes unnoticed in these discussions: sulphuric acid, which is just as important for the clean energy transition. 

Recent tensions in the Middle East and problems with shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have pushed up sulphur and sulphuric acid prices. Although sulphur does not get as much attention as lithium or nickel, its use in processing battery materials means that price swings can affect the whole EV supply chain. 

India is working hard to localize battery production through the ACC PLI scheme and the National Critical Minerals Mission. The growing sulphur issue shows that just securing minerals is not enough. Having access to the chemicals needed to process these minerals is just as important. 

Sulphur Hidden Role in Battery Supply Chain 

Sulphuric acid is a key chemical used to extract, leach, roast, and purify important battery minerals. It plays a central role in making lithium, processing nickel, separating rare earths, and producing manganese sulphate, making it essential to many battery supply chains. 

Figure 1: Sulphur Dependency Across Battery Materials and EV Manufacturing 

Source: CES Analysis and secondary sources 

Battery makers usually focus on securing sufficient supplies of lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite. However, the price and supply of sulphuric acid can have a big impact on battery production costs. As demand for batteries rises, the industry relies even more on processes that consume large amounts of sulphur. India is highly dependent on sulphur imports, sourcing over 50% its annual requirement from Middle East countries¹. Countries like UAE, Oman, and Saudi Arabia supply more than 80% of India’s sulphur requirement which goes majorly into fertilizer industry². The Middle East accounted for around a quarter of global sulphur production at 83.87 million metric tons in 2025, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. 

Figure 2: Sulphur and Sulphuric Acid Prices (2025-2026) (USD/Ton) 

Source: Trademap 

Industry sources say sulphur prices have risen by more than 100% globally, and sulphuric acid prices have more than doubled since the conflict in Iran began. What used to be a stable cost is now a major expense for battery material producers. For instance, the price of sulphur rose to US$ 1,150/ton in May 2026 from US$ 525/ton in late 2025 whereas sulphuric acid price escalated to US$ 400/ton in 2026 from $200/ton in late 2025³. 

Lithium Refining Under Pressure 

Lithium is central to modern rechargeable batteries, but converting lithium ore into battery-grade chemicals depends heavily on sulphuric acid. Globally, about 99% of hard-rock lithium processing uses sulphuricacid roasting, making it essential for producing battery-grade lithium from spodumene and mica. A typical operation processing 200,000 tonnes of ore annually may require 30,000 to 50,000 tonnes of sulphuricacid for leaching alone, highlighting the sector’s strong dependence on sulphur-based processing. 

The lithium industry is especially sensitive to higher sulphuric acid prices. Industry estimates show that the cost of acid in lithium chemical production has tripled in just six months due to increasing consumption of sulphuric acid in lithium chemical production. Sulphuric acid, once a minor expense, is now one of the most unpredictable and largest costs in lithium refining. It used to make up 3% of the cost to produce lithium chemicals from hard rock, but now it is 11% and has become the highest single cost, even more than energy⁴. Therefore, according to CES estimates, a sustained sulphur price shock could increase EV battery pack costs by 2-5%, with nickel-rich chemistries and batteries reliant on sulphate-based precursor production being particularly exposed. 

Nickel Supply Chain Risks 

Among all battery materials, nickel production through High Pressure Acid Leach (HPAL) technology is perhaps the most sulphur-intensive. HPAL facilities process laterite nickel ores using large volumes of sulphuric acid to produce Mixed Hydroxide Precipitate (MHP), which is subsequently refined into battery-grade nickel sulphate. As per industry estimates that each tonne of contained nickel produced through HPAL may require more than 10 tons of sulphur⁵. A rise in sulphuric acid prices from approximately US$200/t to US$400/t can increase operating costs by an estimated 25-45%, depending on acid consumption rates and ore characteristics. Since sulphuric acid is one of the largest reagent inputs in HPAL processing, higher acid prices can significantly erode margins and raise the cost of nickel units produced⁶.  

Indonesia has emerged as the world’s largest nickel supplier through HPAL projects that produce Mixed Hydroxide Precipitate (MHP), a critical precursor for battery-grade nickel. About 76-80% of Indonesia’s sulfur is imported from the Middle East, and Indonesia’s sulfur imports surged to 5.35 million metric tons in 2025, up 48% year-over-year, driven by the rapid expansion of High-Pressure Acid Leach (HPAL) processing⁷. However, this critical supply line is under severe pressure due to Middle East geopolitical conflicts and the disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. 

Nickel-rich cathode types like NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt) and NCMA are still the main choice for long-range EV batteries. India now imports most of its battery-grade nickel, but future investments in making cathode materials could face higher costs if sulphur prices stay unstable. Indian companies that buy nickel intermediates from Indonesia may end up paying more because of these increased production costs. 

HPMSM: The Overlooked Battery Material Facing Sulphur Risk 

Lithium and nickel usually get most of the attention in battery supply chain talks, but High Purity Manganese Sulphate Monohydrate (HPMSM) is also becoming important and is affected by changes in sulphuricacid prices. HPMSM is a key ingredient for high-manganese cathodes and NMC battery types that are being used more in electric vehicles. 

The production of battery-grade manganese sulphate is highly dependent on sulphuric acid. Manganese ores are leached and purified using large amounts of acid before they become HPMSM. So, if sulphuric acid prices stay high, the cost to produce HPMSM also goes up. Battery manufacturers are exploring manganese-based cathode materials as a cost-effective alternative to nickel-rich chemistries. India’s ambition to localize cathode active material (CAM) production under the Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) PLI scheme could face higher input costs if sulphuric acid markets remain volatile. As demand for lithium iron phosphate (LFP), LMFP, and manganese-rich NMC batteries expands, securing stable sulphuric acid supplies will become increasingly important for maintaining competitiveness in domestic cathode manufacturing. 

Copper Foil Manufacturing Faces Upstream Risks 

Copper is also a key part of batteries. Every lithium-ion battery uses copper current collectors, and electric vehicles need a lot of copper for wiring, busbars, charging stations, and power electronics. Over 20% of the world’s mined copper is made using solvent extraction-electrowinning (SX-EW), which requires approximately 2-3 tonnes of sulphuric acid per tonne of copper cathode produced, with consumption rising above 5 tonnes per tonne of copper for highly acid-consuming ore ⁸. So, higher sulphur costs can affect how much it costs to produce copper and its price further down the supply chain. 

This issue is becoming increasingly relevant for India as copper demand is expected to rise sharply with expanding EV production and renewable energy installations. Any disruption in copper supply or increase in production costs could impact battery manufacturing economics and broader electrification initiatives. 

India’s recent move into copper foil manufacturing, with investments from companies like Hindalco Industries, makes it even more important to have a steady supply of copper. Copper foil is a key material for anodes in lithium-ion batteries, and its success depends on reliable copper sources. 

Implications for Cobalt Markets 

Cobalt is less affected by sulphur risks because it is mostly made as a by-product of nickel and copper mining. Still, the report says that cobalt supply risks are tied to what happens in the nickel and copper industries. 

India now depends on imported cobalt chemicals, but as the country builds more battery factories, changes in cobalt supply could affect cathode production. 

Rare Earth Magnets and EV Motors: An Indirect Sulphur Connection 

Sulphur market problems can also impact India’s fast-growing electric vehicle parts market. Permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs), which are common in electric two-wheelers, cars, buses, and commercial vehicles, use high-performance neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets. 

Making rare earth elements like neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium involves a lot of acid leaching and solvent extraction, which use large amounts of sulphuric acid. Rare earth concentrates are often roasted with sulphuric acid before they are separated and purified. 

China leads the world in refining rare earths and making magnets, supplying most of the global NdFeB magnets. If sulphuric acid prices go up, it could make refining more expensive and push up the prices of rare earth oxides and magnets. 

This is a big concern for India. The country imports many of the rare earth magnets it needs for EV motors, industrial automation, and electronics. As more people buy EVs, higher magnet prices could raise the cost of making motors and affect the overall price of vehicles. This is especially important for PMSM-based electric vehicles, which are popular because they are efficient and powerful. 

India’s EV Ambition 

India has set up one of the most ambitious plans for EV and battery manufacturing in the world. Government programs like the ACC PLI Scheme, Auto PLI Scheme, PM E-Drive, and the National Critical Minerals Mission aim to build a strong local industry for battery cells, cathode materials, copper foil, EV parts, and recycling. But the recent problems in the sulphur market show that just having access to minerals is not enough. 

Table1: Exposure of India’s Battery Ecosystem to Sulphur-Intensive Materials 

Source: CES Analysis and Secondary Sources 

India remains dependent on imported sulphur and sulphur-based chemicals. Domestic refining infrastructure for lithium, nickel, cobalt, and precursor materials is still at an early stage compared with global leaders like China, South Korea, and Japan. 

As India builds more gigafactories and pushes for local production, the supply of sulphuric acid could become a major bottleneck. This could affect many areas at once, including battery materials, copper foil, rare earth magnets, and EV motors. 

Strategic Opportunities for India 

The country has identified significant lithium resources in Jammu and Kashmir and is actively acquiring critical mineral assets in countries such as Australia and Argentina to improve long-term raw material security. Recognizing the importance of developing domestic midstream capabilities, the Ministry of Mines is preparing a ₹3,000 crore incentive scheme to support lithium and nickel processing capacity in India, helping reduce dependence on imported refined materials and strengthen the domestic battery supply chain⁹. 

However, securing mineral resources alone will not be sufficient. If India does not build adequate sulphuric acid production capacity, refining infrastructure, and integrated chemical processing capabilities, the cost of converting lithium and nickel into battery-grade materials will remain vulnerable to fluctuations in global sulphur markets. This exposure is particularly important because sulphuric acid is a critical input for lithium refining, nickel HPAL processing, and several downstream battery-material production routes. 

Even with these challenges, the disruption in the global sulphur market also creates new opportunities for India. While the country has limited native sulphur resources compared with major producers in the Middle East and North America, growing demand for battery materials strengthens the case for expanding domestic sulphur recovery from refineries and petrochemical facilities, investing in sulphuric acid manufacturing, and developing integrated critical-mineral processing hubs. These priorities align closely with the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM), which seeks to build resilient domestic value chains for critical minerals through investments in exploration, overseas asset acquisition, processing, recycling, and technology development. 

As India’s battery manufacturing sector expands, strategic priorities should extend beyond increasing sulphuric acid capacity. Policymakers and industry stakeholders should secure diversified sulphur supply agreements, enhance sulphur recovery from domestic refining and petrochemical operations, develop dedicated chemical parks for battery-material processing, and establish strategic reserves of sulphur and sulphuric acid. These actions would improve resilience to global supply shocks and support the growth of domestic lithium refining, nickel processing, precursor materials, and rare-earth value chains. 

Recycling is another critical long-term solution. Recovering lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper from end-of-life batteries requires significantly less primary mining and sulphur-intensive processing than producing these materials from virgin resources. India has already introduced a ₹1,500 crore incentive scheme for critical mineral recycling under the NCMM, highlighting the growing importance of circular supply chains in strengthening resource security, reducing import dependence, and supporting sustainability objectives¹⁰.  

Conclusion 

The recent jump in sulphur and sulphuric acid prices shows that supply chains for key minerals involve more than just lithium, nickel, and cobalt. Sulphur is now a crucial part of battery manufacturing, affecting the costs of refining lithium, processing nickel, making copper, and supplying cobalt. 

For India, aiming to become a global leader in battery manufacturing, having a steady supply of sulphur and sulphuric acid is just as important as securing key minerals. Companies building gigafactories, making battery materials, producing copper foil, and recycling should make sulphur supply a part of their long-term plans. Countries that create strong and flexible chemical supply chains will be best placed to lead the next stage of the global battery industry. 

Key Decision #1 – Energy Storage RA Must Exclude the Foldback Region

CPUC has determined that the current Qualifying Capacity (QC) calculation for storage does not properly reflect the maximum continuous energy a resource is able to provide over a four-hour period due to the “foldback” characteristics of batteries. Foldback, or nonlinearity, describes how certain battery technologies experience a reduced charge or discharge rate when approaching the resource’s state of charge (SOC) limits. The proposed new calculation for storage QC is as follows:

“The storage QC value is clarified as the output level at which a resource can discharge for four or more continuous hours without being affected by nonlinearity (or foldback).”

What it Means for Developers – 

There is general acknowledgement of this nonlinearity issue in the storage industry, and most participants seem to be in agreement with the decision. But it does have a meaningful impact for both developers and Load Serving Entities (LSEs) in California. By removing the foldback region from the RA calculation, storage’s QC may be significantly lower. As an example, a 100 MW 4-hour battery may only qualify for 90 MW of RA, considering foldback in the bottom 10% of the discharge. 

The developer has less RA to sell, but the same revenue requirements. This could lead to higher RA pricing across the state as developers push to protect their investments. From the LSE’s perspective, its existing RA stack is suddenly reduced, leading to a crunch in the market as all LSE’s are looking to meet their compliance requirements.

Key Decision #2 – Accreditation for Long-Duration Energy Storage

One of the main points of contention in the implementation of the Slice of Day (SOD) RA framework was the fact that long duration energy storage (LDES) cannot be properly accounted for if charging/discharging cycles exceed 24 hours. In the SOD framework, storage resources must be able to identify the excess energy that will be used to charge during the forward charging period (FCP), or the prior hours in the 24-hour SOD window. Considering efficiency losses, this current methodology makes it impossible to identify enough hours of charging for a 12+ hour storage resource to qualify for the full 12+ hour RA it expects.

The CPUC set out to remedy this issue with its new ruling. They introduced a sliding scale that extends the FCP depending on the duration of the storage. In other words, the number of days over which the LDES is assumed to charge will be extended for longer duration storage such that it can reach an SOC that supports showing its full duration on LSE supply plans. This FCP multiplier varies by storage duration, as shown below:

What it Means for Developers – 

While there is some contention over the exact approach the CPUC took, this is progress for how LDES is valued in the context of California RA. Logically, it makes sense that LDES would be able to charge to a higher SOC and provide more value to an LSE’s reliability than a 4-hour battery. The FCP multiplier method provides a technology-agnostic approach to calculating that value without significant additional computational requirements, making it a beneficial improvement without major added burden for the LSEs and CPUC staff. 

The next step for developers is determining the appropriate pricing for their RA offering given the added value that LDES can now provide. It also creates more incentive for longer-durations, but determining the optimal balance between capital cost and RA + wholesale revenues remains a difficult challenge without credible forecasts. 

Key Decision #3 – Incremental Changes for Energy Only Resources for Charging Sufficiency

Members of the clean energy industry have long pushed the CPUC to include Energy Only (EO) resources in the RA program in some fashion in order to support the development of solar and wind resources to meet the State’s clean energy goals. However, the CPUC has always excluded EO resources from RA capacity since they are by definition not deliverable, thus including them would pose a risk to the system reliability. A compromise approach has been suggested, where the energy from EO resources could be used to count towards co-located storage’s charging sufficiency test. Since the EO energy is not counting towards an LSE’s RA obligation, that energy is free to use for charging – or so proponents suggested.

While the CPUC has declined to include all EO capacity for charging sufficiency, noting the deliverability risk and performance uncertainty, they have agreed to allow EO capacity to count up to the Point of Interconnection (POI) limit. Effective beginning in the 2027 RA compliance year, the charging sufficiency value from co-located EO resources will be calculated as follows:

Energy Available for Charging Sufficiency = [Total energy produced (subject to hourly POI

limits)] – [On-site paired storage energy sufficiency need]

What it Means for Developers – 

For developers that already own and operate co-located EO resources, this is a great change that will immediately add value to their project. It does not reach the full benefit that the industry was looking for (namely, counting all EO capacity towards charging sufficiency), but developers with larger solar-to-storage ratios behind a shared POI get more charging sufficiency credit than before, potentially allowing them to show more storage hours in their off-taker’s SOD filing.

This ruling also creates new opportunities for developers to potentially site storage at EO solar resources. By adding storage to these underutilized projects, the solar’s value would immediately rise as it provides the key charging sufficiency need for storage to count towards SOD.

Next Steps –

The CPUC is currently taking comments, and the earliest adoption is the July 2 Business Meeting. While it is expected that most of the ruling will pass relatively unchanged, it will be important to monitor the exact final language for each decision point. Once the decision becomes law, that’s when the real work begins. Developers will need to consider how the changed rules should impact their business model in California, and how the value of their projects will change. CES can support the evaluation of market rules on project viability and provide strategy recommendations for development. Contact Devin Gaby at devin.gaby@ces-ltd.com to discuss your project.

^[1] https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M608/K058/608058096.PDF

For organizations operating in PJM, that means the cost of falling behind the stakeholder process has never been higher. What looks like a regulatory proceeding in one corner of the market can turn out to be an existential threat or a significant commercial opportunity, depending on how well-positioned an organization is when the rules settle.

The Issues in Play

Reliability Backstop

The most time-sensitive proceeding underway is the reliability backstop, ordered jointly by NERC and PJM’s governing bodies in January and expected to conclude as early as this month. The mechanism would authorize a special capacity auction allowing multi-year commitments of up to 15 years for large load entities — a structure PJM’s existing capacity market does not currently accommodate.

The intent is to assign dedicated capacity procurement responsibility to large loads, separating their cost obligations from those of other customer classes. This directly addresses a concern that has become increasingly visible in PJM’s stakeholder process: end-use customers have been showing up to planning meetings in growing numbers, and their concerns about rising costs have become a real input to market design decisions. The reliability backstop is, in part, PJM’s structural response to that pressure — an attempt to ensure that the costs associated with large load growth are borne by large loads rather than distributed across all ratepayers.

Connect and Manage

Running in parallel, PJM is developing a new reliability approach called Connect and Manage. It would make qualifying large loads interruptible in grid stress scenarios, before curtailment affects residential or other standard load classes. The mechanism is structured to encourage large load entities to secure their own generation resources rather than relying entirely on the shared grid — whether through grid-connected generation that can operate around the clock, or through on-site backup resources that can function as demand response during curtailment events.

The proceeding is still in early stages. The meetings have not yet produced a clear solution framework, but a deadline approximately eight weeks out means the pace of development will need to accelerate significantly.

Co-located Load

A related and less publicly discussed issue involves co-located load — the question of how generation and large load operating on the same site interact with PJM’s market rules. As large load entities explore on-site generation arrangements, PJM is working through the operational and market implications of loads and generation that share a physical interconnection but may have complex relationships with the broader grid. This proceeding, still pending at FERC, has material implications for how co-location arrangements are structured and what obligations they carry.

Transmission Investment

The transmission picture is substantial and shows no sign of slowing. Each of the last three Regional Transmission Expansion Plans has authorized investment levels larger than the prior three decades of transmission spending combined within the region. That reflects three converging pressures: load growth concentrated in specific geographic areas, a generation fleet whose location on the grid has shifted materially over the past decade, and aging infrastructure reaching end-of-life in large cohorts simultaneously. Supply chain constraints and post-pandemic cost increases have made rebuilding and expanding that infrastructure significantly more expensive than it would have been even five years ago. Organizations with generation assets or load-serving obligations need to understand how transmission cost allocation is evolving.

Reserve Market Reform

PJM has been working since 2023 to overhaul its reserve markets through the Reserve Certainty Senior Task Force. The initiative aims to roughly triple available reserve megawatts and create a new category of ramping reserve products designed to manage wider frequency swings caused by increasing solar penetration. PJM began seeing early signs of a duck curve dynamic in 2023, particularly on hot summer days with high solar output. The reserve overhaul is PJM’s effort to build the market structures needed to manage that challenge as it becomes more pronounced.

Why This Moment Matters for Large Load Entities in Particular

The reliability backstop and Connect and Manage proceedings are not background issues for large load entities — they will directly determine capacity procurement obligations, interruptibility requirements, and the resource arrangements large loads may need to put in place. These proceedings are moving quickly, and the time between a rule being finalized and its commercial implications becoming visible is shrinking.

The honest read on where things stand is that PJM is threading a needle with no obvious solution that satisfies all objectives simultaneously: bringing on sufficient new generation, expanding transmission to deliver it, accommodating large load growth, and keeping costs manageable across all customer classes. That tension is real, and it is what makes independent, expert guidance critical rather than optional.

How CES Fits In

The challenge most organizations face is not a lack of information. It is having the bandwidth and expertise to stay current across interconnected proceedings that move quickly and do not always telegraph their commercial implications clearly.

CES’s Market IQ team attends every PJM stakeholder meeting — lower and senior committees, task forces, working groups — and translates that engagement into guidance tailored to each client’s specific market position. For organizations with internal regulatory staff, CES functions as a ground-truth resource and sounding board, a monthly check on whether their read of a fast-moving process is complete. For organizations covering multiple markets with limited bandwidth for any single one, CES provides the consistent, expert presence the PJM process now demands.

The link CES provides is between what is happening at the ISO level and what it means for a specific organization’s commercial interests. Those two things are not always obvious to connect, particularly for clients whose businesses span multiple markets and multiple asset types. Understanding what happened in a stakeholder meeting last week matters a great deal less than understanding what it means for your capacity position, your transmission exposure, or your resource planning decisions going forward.

If you are active in PJM markets and want to ensure your organization has the coverage it needs, we would welcome the conversation.

By: Christina Corcoran, Senior Marketing Manager, Customized Energy Solutions

CERC CES FIV – May 2026 – Download