What it is
TradL is a turnkey energy storage system that automatically buys electricity when prices are low and sells back when prices are high. It's targeted at industrial facilities, commercial buildings, and data centres that want to reduce power costs without installing solar — and without putting an engineer on Nord Pool watch.
The whole system fits in a single 19" rack with a 60×60 cm footprint and ~120 cm height: a 6 kW three-phase inverter, 10-15 kWh of modular Pylontech batteries, a control computer running the proprietary trading algorithm, and a web UI for monitoring and configuration.
How it works
Every morning the control computer downloads the day-ahead Nord Pool price curve. It then plans charge and discharge cycles to:
- Arbitrage — buy electricity from the grid during the cheapest hours, sell back during the most expensive
- Peak-shave — flatten the facility's instantaneous demand to avoid peak-charge tariffs
- Skip unprofitable cycles — operators set a minimum profit-per-cycle threshold so the battery isn't worn out by marginal trades
Everything runs unattended. No manual trading, no daily intervention, no scripts to babysit.
What's inside
| Subsystem | Specification |
|---|---|
| Form factor | 19" rack, ~120 cm height, 60×60 cm footprint |
| Power | 6 kW three-phase inverter |
| Battery | 10-15 kWh typical (Pylontech US5000 modules, expandable) |
| Network | Ethernet required |
| Control | Custom controller running the trading algorithm |
| Interface | Web browser monitoring and configuration |
| Price source | Nord Pool day-ahead exchange |
| Operating temp | Optimal at 20°C |
| Site requirements | Two-way electricity meter, Ethernet connection |
How Tech42 platforms enable it
TradL is built on the same hardware and software stack Tech42 ships to other customers:
- SparkFrame provides the 19" rack chassis, power conditioning, and the slots that hold the Pylontech battery modules.
- MACS runs the control algorithm — using MACS Studio for the trading logic, the web dashboard for the operator UI, and the microservice node architecture so a fault in any one subsystem doesn't take the whole rack down.
Because the platform is open, the trading algorithm itself is a customer-developed Python node that calls into MACS's APIs. New strategies can be deployed remotely via SSH or the web UI without rebuilding firmware.
Where it fits
- Industrial facilities with high baseload power consumption
- Commercial buildings facing peak-demand charges
- Data centres looking to reduce grid spend
- Any site with a two-way meter and no clear path to solar
Get in touch for system sizing and a Nord Pool ROI estimate against your tariff and consumption profile.