Bottling Plant ESS — Latin America TCO Use-Case

Verdict (base case). A 750 kWh / 375 kW lithium-iron-phosphate BESS at a Latin American bottling plant, 12-year horizon, 10.00% real discount rate, returns NPV = -151,707.23 USD, LCOS = 0.2420 USD/kWh, and no payback (simple and discounted payback = none). Over the 12 years, 370,921.33 USD of undiscounted cost exceeds 319,000.67 USD of undiscounted benefit; PV of costs (336,920.08 USD) exceeds PV of benefits (185,212.84 USD). Under the base inputs the demand-charge savings alone do not carry the investment; ride-through/spinning-reserve credit, tariff upside, or a lower capex band is required to flip the sign. Equipment class: 750 kWh DC BESS with CATL LFP cells and Sungrow PCS (model names stated below). Location: Latin American bottling plant. Horizon: 12 years. Evidence date: 2026-09-22.

Decision table

1. Use case definition

• Primary service: Peak shaving (demand-charge reduction) — discharge window aligned with daytime production peaks.
• Secondary service: Short-duration ride-through bridging to existing diesel rotary UPS; spinning-reserve relief.
• Site class: Industrial — light manufacturing, captive MV/LV step-down, indoor electrical room or containerised outdoor pad.
• Reference scope: Single 750 kWh / 375 kW (2-hour) DC-coupled LFP ESS with hybrid inverter, BMS, fire suppression and SCADA gateway.

2. Equipment identification

The base-case stack is sized as a representative 750 kWh / 375 kW DC BESS. The reference configuration used here is:

• Cells: CATL LFP prismatic cells, 280 Ah grade, supplied as part of CATL's commercial ESS modules (family referenced on the CATL ESS product page: CATL energy storage). Exact module SKU and Ah rating to be confirmed against the vendor test report at RFQ.
• PCS / hybrid inverter: Sungrow ST2752HV / ST2500HV-class medium-voltage hybrid inverter (Sungrow product page: Sungrow). For sites preferring Huawei, an equivalent SUN2000 series string PCS is named as an alternative (Huawei FusionSolar: Huawei FusionSolar). Specific PCS SKU and firmware rev are confirmed at RFQ against the OEM datasheet.
• BMS: vendor-native BMS shipped with the OEM cabinet; protocol support includes Modbus TCP and OCPP 1.6/2.0.1 per the Open Charge Alliance (Open Charge Alliance). Firmware rev confirmed at RFQ.
• Enclosure: containerised outdoor pad, IP54, NEMA 3R-equivalent; seismic/vibration note per IEC 60068 vendor test summary (to be confirmed at RFQ).

No datasheet PDF URLs for the above are linked here because the OEM product pages are JS-rendered and deep datasheet URLs were not stable in the 2026-09-22 evidence pack. OEM datasheet PDFs and test reports are produced at RFQ against this brief.

3. Inputs

4. TCO summary (computed)

5. Year-by-year cash flow (computed)

6. Sensitivity bands (qualitative)

Because the scenario model is the only mathematics on this page, no recomputed numerical sensitivity table is shown here. The base case is NPV-negative with no payback. Bands that move the verdict:

• Tariff upside: an industrial tariff at the high end of the LatAm C&I band (~28 USD/kW-month combined with sustained 150 kW peak reduction) is required for the demand-charge channel alone to approach break-even; a fuller credit for ride-through and spinning-reserve value is what flips the sign to positive in practice.
• Capex band: turnkey battery + BoS in the lower half of the 2024 LatAm C&I band shortens the gap; the project's specific landed duty, freight (Incoterms 2020 — see ICC Incoterms 2020) and last-mile install must be confirmed before the capex band is locked.
• Discount rate: the 10.00% real rate is conservative for industrial C&I in the region; a lower real rate widens the PV of benefits but does not by itself flip the sign in this base case.

7. Standards & cert checklist

8. Indicative HS codes & duty lookup

Duty rates for the LatAm importing country are not quoted here. Use the relevant national tariff lookup before quoting landed duty. Indicative headings are below for classification only.

Lookup instructions: confirm each HS code against the national tariff of the importing country in Latin America (AR — IGJ / ANA; BR — RFB; CL — Servicio Nacional de Aduanas; MX — SAT; CO — DIAN; PE — SUNAT). Cross-check any free-trade-zone or special-regime treatment (e.g., Manaus in BR, free zones in CO/PE) before quoting landed duty. For non-LatAm export legs, also consult US Customs and Border Protection, US International Trade Administration, Japan Customs, Australian Border Force, SARS, Ghana Revenue Authority and Uganda Revenue Authority as relevant.

Disclaimer: The HS classifications above are indicative placeholders marked PENDING. They are not legal advice and not a quote of applicable duty. Final duty assessment is determined by the national customs authority of the importing country at the time of entry.

9. Logistics & handling references

• Freight terms: Incoterms 2020 rules per ICC.
• Dangerous goods (lithium batteries): IATA DGR per IATA; UN 38.3 transport test summary per the UN Manual of Tests and Criteria.
• Freight forwarding documents: FIATA per FIATA.
• Wood packaging compliance: ISPM 15 per IPPC.
• Charging protocol (if EV charging bundled with the BESS): OCPP per Open Charge Alliance; conductive charging per IEC 61851-1:2017.

10. CTAs

(1) Request a quoted RFQ against this brief: tradvolt.com/rfq/

11. Model assumptions register

All inputs that drive the computed tables are listed in §3. Items marked "Model assumption" are bounded defaults that the scenario model expects; they are not external data. In particular: residual_value.amount = 0; residual_value.year = n/a; asset.ess.degradation_pct_per_year = 2.0; asset.ess.charge_cost_per_kwh and asset.ess.value_per_kwh_discharged are model-internal and resolve to the benefit, energy and LCOS values in §4 and §5. No financial figure on this page is computed outside the computed tables.