AI quoting for BESS integrators

Win more battery storage bids by sending your price first.

BESS means battery energy storage system, and a BESS job often arrives as a long request for proposals (RFP) that several integrators are pricing at the same time. Mavlon's AI Quoting Engine turns that bid package into a priced draft quote in your own pricing within minutes, so your team answers first, bids on more RFPs and stops losing jobs to slow quotes. Your estimator or proposal manager checks it and sets the final number.

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From a public battery storage RFP

p.7The buyer asks for two batteries, of 207 kW and 378 kW, each rated for at least 4 kWh per kW.
p.7The page never says whether that energy is counted at the battery or at the meter.
p.10Batteries and inverters must carry a 20-year warranty, but page 7 asks for only 5 years of maintenance.
154 ppNo fire standard is named anywhere in the package.

If the energy is counted at the meter, our sample quote needs 220 kWh more battery, which adds $70,400. The draft prices both readings and writes the question for the buyer, so the answer can still change your price before the proposal goes in.

Why speed decides who wins

Battery storage is growing fast, and a slow proposal hands the job to someone else.

Storage is measured two ways. Power, in megawatts (MW), is how fast a system can deliver energy, and energy, in megawatt-hours (MWh), is how much it can hold. Wood Mackenzie and the American Clean Power Association reported a record 18.9 GWh, or 18,900 MWh, of battery storage installed in the US in the second quarter of 2026, and the average system installed that quarter could hold 3.5 hours of energy at full power, up from 2.8 hours a year earlier. The US Energy Information Administration reported that operators plan to bring another 14 GW, or 14,000 MW, of large grid-connected batteries online in the second half of 2026. With that much storage being bought, the integrator who answers first, with a price the buyer can trust, is talking to the buyer while the others are still reading the package.

18.9 GWh

Battery storage installed in the US in Q2 2026, a record, per Wood Mackenzie and ACP

14 GW

Large grid-connected battery storage planned to come online in the US in the second half of 2026, per the EIA

Minutes

From a battery storage bid package to a priced draft quote

The price of a battery storage job rarely goes wrong on the cells. It goes wrong in the sentences around them, and those sit on different pages. In the 154-page RFP in our guide, the battery size is on page 7, the warranty on page 10, the inverter rules on page 11 and the price form on page 27, and the fire standard is on none of them.

The AI Quoting Engine reads the whole package before your team starts, so the reading is already done when the draft arrives. Your estimator begins from priced lines with their pages, settles the calls that move the total, and sends the proposal while other integrators are still working out what the buyer asked for.

Video: AI Quoting for Battery Storage: From Bid Package to Draft Quote (2:26)

Read the battery storage specification guide →Wood Mackenzie on Q2 2026 installations →The EIA on planned battery capacity →

What goes in

You give it the whole RFP, not only the battery size.

A BESS system integrator usually prices a job from the buyer's own documents, and the size of the battery is only the start. Here is what each part of one public package settles, with its page.

Scope of the request

The sizes, the duration, where each battery connects, and what it has to work alongside.

Page 7 asks for a minimum 207 kW battery at Meter 6439 and a minimum 378 kW battery at Meter 4626, each rated for 4 kWh per kW, which means four hours at full power. It also asks for a 5-year maintenance agreement for each battery.

RFP, page 7

Technical requirements

Which battery products and inverters you can offer, and the materials around them.

Page 11 names Tesla, SYL, Fortress or equal. The inverters, also called the power conversion system or PCS, turn the battery's direct current into the alternating current a site uses, and they need a 120 percent overload capacity, a 480 volt AC output and an efficiency of 98.3 percent or better at full load.

RFP, page 11

Warranty and fade

How long you stand behind the plant, and how much extra battery the quote must carry.

Page 10 asks for a 20-year warranty on batteries and inverters, and for all materials to be warranted against degradation for the life of the equipment. Fade is the capacity a battery loses as it ages. Our sample quote carries 140 kWh of extra battery for it. A stricter reading could mean a much larger battery, or adding battery in stages over the years, which the industry calls augmentation.

RFP, page 10

Price form and exceptions sheet

How the price must be laid out, and where you list what you leave out.

Page 27 asks for a separate breakdown for each battery, with lines for the switchgear, the SEL 735 and 700G relays, the maintenance agreement, balance of material, labor and tax, and a column for make and model. Page 28 is the Omissions and Exceptions sheet.

RFP, pages 27 and 28

What you get back

You get back a priced draft quote, built the way your company prices.

The engine learns your pricing from your own past proposals, the quotes you sent and your costing spreadsheets, so the cost per kWh, the inverter price per kW, the labor hours, the field service day rate and the margin are yours. Each new RFP then comes back as a draft your estimator can check line by line.

Every line tied to its page

Each line has a quantity, a price from your own rates and the page that asks for it, so a reviewer can trace it back to the package.

p.27Switchgear with SEL 735 and 700G relays, 2 sets

Open calls priced both ways

Where the package can be read two ways, the draft carries the likely reading and prices the other one beside it. Flip the call and the total moves at once.

p.7At the battery or at the meter: $70,400 apart in our sample quote

TBD where nobody can know yet

A line the package does not settle says TBD, meaning to be determined, so a guess never hides inside a firm total.

154 ppFire protection and test reports, with no fire standard named

Questions written for the buyer

Each open point becomes a question, already worded so your team can paste it into the reply.

p.10Who maintains the batteries after year 5?

Then the quote

Your estimator or proposal manager reads the draft, changes what they know better, adds tax the way your company does and sends the proposal. The questions go out early, so the buyer's answers can still change your price.

What it does not do

It does not design the plant, decide whether your offer complies with the package or set your margin, and it never sends anything to the buyer. Your team decides every number that goes out.

How it differs

Most quoting tools price a part or an option. A battery storage job is priced from the buyer's RFP.

Each of these tools does its own job well, and each was built for a different kind of request. This is where each one fits, so you can tell which one suits a battery storage proposal.

Kind of tool	What goes in	Where the price comes from	Fits best when
Configure-price-quote toolsTacton, Salesforce Revenue Cloud, Epicor CPQ	A salesperson picks options from your product catalogue.	Pricing rules you set up for each option.	You sell standard models, such as a catalogue battery cabinet, that a few choices describe.
Job-shop quoting softwarePaperless Parts, SecturaFAB, Costimator	Part files and part drawings.	The part's geometry, its operations and your shop rates.	You machine or fabricate single parts from customer drawings.
Quoting inside your ERPJobBOSS², MRPeasy	The materials and routing your estimator types in.	The rates and routings already stored in your ERP.	You run the shop in that ERP and quote work like jobs you have done before.
Drawing data toolsWerk24	Single engineering drawings.	No price. It turns drawings into data for your other systems.	You want drawing data inside your own ERP or quoting tool.
Manufacturing data searchCADDi	Your archive of drawings and manufacturing data.	The past jobs and costs it finds for you.	You quote repeat parts and want to find what you made before.
Should-cost simulationaPriori	3D CAD models.	A simulated cost of making the part.	You run cost engineering or check what suppliers charge.
Mavlon AI Quoting EngineFor systems quoted from a bid package or RFP	The whole bid package: the RFP, technical specification, drawings, data sheets, price form, addenda and the covering email.	Your own rate book, costing spreadsheets and past proposals.	You integrate or build battery storage to a buyer's RFP and price the batteries, inverters, switchgear, controls, installation, maintenance and warranty as one proposal.

We make Mavlon, so read this table with that in mind. Descriptions of other tools come from their own websites in October 2026, and corrections are welcome at atishay@mavlon.co. Many teams use a configurator for standard models and Mavlon for the jobs that arrive as a bid package.

Where it fits

It is built for the RFPs that take your team the longest.

Custom work

Mavlon is the right tool when

The request arrives as an RFP or bid package: a technical specification, drawings, a price form and addenda.
Each proposal is built around the buyer's site, with its own battery size, duration, inverters, switchgear, maintenance years and warranty terms.
Your proposal engineers spend days reading before anyone can price, because fade, warranty and measuring rules change from one buyer to the next.
You pass on RFPs you would like to bid, or you answer them late.

Standard sales

A different tool fits better when

You sell standard battery cabinets from a price list, and a few options describe each order. A configurator is faster for that.
Your requests are short and name the product and size clearly. A good estimator will price them faster than any tool.
You sell cells or modules by the piece to other builders, with no site, warranty or service terms to price. Your own price list does that well.

We make Mavlon. Corrections are welcome at atishay@mavlon.co.

Prove it on your own proposals

Check it against proposals you have already sent.

Before it touches a live RFP, we run it on past battery storage jobs your team has already priced, with the pass mark agreed in writing first.

Pick one kind of job you bid often, such as batteries for commercial sites or larger grid-connected systems.
Set aside past RFPs whose proposals the engine never sees.
The engine prices them from the raw documents.
Compare its totals with the prices your team actually sent.

A US manufacturer of engineered waterfront structures went live in production after a test like this. Its drafts land within about 2 to 3 percent of its own price on familiar product lines, and within about 10 to 15 percent on brand-new jobs with many add-ons.

The pilot protocol →The waterfront structures case study →

What we have published so far

A live customer: a US manufacturer of engineered waterfront structures, name withheld at its request.
The battery storage guide: a public 154-page RFP for two batteries, followed to an example draft quote priced with sample rates.
The Cape Vincent demo: a public 179-page bid package turned into a priced draft quote.

The pass bar: seven of ten totals within 15 percent, agreed in writing first.

Read before you book

Read these before your next battery storage proposal.

GuideBattery energy storage system specificationA public 154-page RFP for two batteries, followed line by line to an example draft quote, with the $70,400 question about where the energy is counted.GuidePre-bid risk assessmentA register of the sentences in the buyer's document that cost money, each with its page, its exposure and who decides.GuideFixed price contract riskWhat 32 manufacturers tell investors about fixed price contracts, and why the risk is made at the quote.GuideReading bid packagesWhat five real public bid packages showed about where the numbers hide.GuideAI quoting for data center equipmentHow data center power and cooling suppliers answer bid packages first, with a public generator package as the example.ToolSpecification compliance matrixAn Excel template that keeps every requirement in a package next to its page and your offer.

What is AI quoting for BESS integrators?

It means using an AI Quoting Engine to read a buyer's battery storage RFP and draft the priced quote for the proposal. Mavlon's AI Quoting Engine reads the technical specification, drawings, price form and addenda together, and turns them into a priced draft quote in the integrator's own pricing, with every line tied to the page it came from. Your estimator or proposal manager checks it and sets the final number. Each battery storage system is engineered for one site, so integrators work like custom manufacturers, sometimes called engineer-to-order companies, and the price has to come from the buyer's own documents.

Is it for BESS system integrators or for battery energy storage system manufacturers?

It is for both, whenever the job arrives as a bid package. A BESS system integrator answers RFPs for complete plants, and many battery energy storage system manufacturers quote their enclosures, inverters or complete systems against a buyer's specification. In both cases the price depends on the whole package: the size and duration, the inverters, the warranty and fade terms, the maintenance years, the price form and the open points.

How is Mavlon different from a configurator or CPQ tool?

A configurator prices standard options that a salesperson picks from your catalogue, such as a cabinet size. Mavlon starts one step earlier, from the buyer's RFP, and works out what is being asked for before anything can be priced, for example where the energy is counted and how long the warranty runs. Many teams use both: a configurator for standard models and Mavlon for jobs that arrive as a bid package.

How is it different from Paperless Parts, SecturaFAB or Costimator?

Those tools price machined and fabricated parts from part files and drawings, using the part's geometry, its operations and the shop's rates. Mavlon prices a battery storage job from the buyer's whole bid package, meaning the specification, drawings, price form and addenda, in the integrator's own pricing. A job shop quoting single parts is better served by them, and a BESS integrator answering RFPs is better served by Mavlon.

How does it learn our pricing?

From your own records: past RFPs paired with the proposals you sent, your costing spreadsheets and your rate book. That is where your cost per kWh, your inverter price per kW, your labor hours, your field service day rate and your margin come from. Where a rule is not written down anywhere, it becomes a question for your estimator rather than a guess.

How fast is the draft?

A priced draft comes back within minutes of the upload. The time your estimator then spends depends on how many decisions the RFP leaves open, such as where the energy is counted, and each one arrives already priced both ways.

Does it replace our estimators or proposal staff?

No. It drafts the quote, and your estimator or proposal manager decides. It does not set margins, decide compliance or send anything to the buyer. What changes is how many RFPs your team can answer, and how fast.

Who is behind Mavlon?

Mavlon, Inc. is a US company founded in 2024 by Atishay Jain, an AI engineer. It builds the AI Quoting Engine for custom manufacturers, and it is live in production with a US manufacturer of engineered waterfront structures. Read that case study.

Questions buyers ask

These are the questions BESS integrators ask us first.

Get your battery storage price to the buyer first.

Book a demo and see the AI Quoting Engine turn a battery storage RFP into a priced draft quote, with every line tied to its page, the open calls priced both ways and the questions for the buyer ready to send.

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