In 2025, BESS installations surpassed 320GWh, a y-o-y increase of over 50%. While this tells one-side of the story, the growth in cell and system shipments tells an even more significant one, writes Benchmark’s Iola Hughes.

Three massive BESS projects have been launched in Europe: BW ESS has broken ground on a 1GW/5.7GWh system in Germany, while Greenvolt and Giga Storage have enlisted suppliers (BYD and Tesla) for 2.4GWh and 2.8GWh projects in Poland and Belgium.

EnBW and VPI have launched construction on large-scale BESS projects in Germany, while Elements Green and Eku Energy have agreed supply and acquisition deals respectively for separate 400MW/1,600MWh projects.

The European Union (EU) has announced a tripartite agreement to accelerate energy storage deployments in the next two years.

UK energy regulator Ofgem has shortlisted 16 projects for the first ever long-duration energy storage (LDES) cap-and-floor scheme, totalling 7.6GW of capacity ranging from 8- to 22-hour durations.

Sodium-ion BESS startup Moonwatt expects the battery chemistry to reach price cost parity with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) in the next two or three years, according to its CCO, Valentin Rota.

ESN Premium heard from executives at battery energy storage system (BESS) firms Rept and Fluence on the EU funding ban on Chinese inverters in solar and BESS projects.

Executives from lithium-ion battery and BESS manufacturer CATL discussed sodium-ion technology at Smarter E Europe today.

We chat to Stephan Lehrke, head of Germany at Second Foundation, a Czech Republic-headquartered energy asset trading firm which is becoming an owner-operator of BESS.

Activity in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) continues to accelerate, with two separate c.600MWh projects completed in Bulgaria by Solarpro & CATL and Sunotec and Sungrow, plus around 800MWh of capacity progressed across Romania, Estonia, Lithuania, and Finland.