Managers of the UK’s largest BESS owner-operator Gresham House Energy Storage Fund (GRID) discussed recent investment news and future strategy this week. 

IPP ContourGlobal has put a solar-plus-storage project in Chile with a 6.5-hour BESS into commercial operation in Chile.

TagEnergy has commissioned a 240MW/480MWh project in France while Iberdrola has done the same with a 58MW/120MWh system in Spain, the two largest projects in each country. Meanwhile Engie, ACL Energy and Chint Solar Europe have moved to construction on projects in Belgium, Italy and Germany.

Germany’s energy system regulator has confirmed that BESS projects coming online by 4 August 2029 will be exempt from charging and discharging grid fees, opening up investment again after months of uncertainty.

Solar Media Market Research analyst Charlotte Gisbourne looks at the changing revenue and margin dynamics in the BESS supplier landscape.

While Germany is often described as the ‘hottest’ energy storage market in Europe, growing uncertainty on multiple policy and regulatory topics has led to a ‘cooling’ of investor interest.

CATL will supply the BESS units for Grenergy’s two large-scale energy storage projects in Spain, both of which have decade-long tolls.

The situation and uncertainty around grid connections and grid fees in Germany is evolving, possibly enabling market participants to look beyond the August 2029 grid fee exemption cut-off date – although uncertainty is still very high.

EDF Power Solutions has commissioned a 50MW/120MWh BESS project in Poland, Eurus has done the same in Hungary, while NGEN and Aretis Group have financed and enlisted optimisers (respectively) for projects in Hungary, Romania, Poland, Slovenia and Latvia.

Invinity Energy Systems has been enlisted to design and deliver the world’s largest flow battery, for a data centre project in Switzerland currently under construction by Flexbase.