Tank storage company Vopak has marked its energy into the BESS sector with a final investment decision (FID) for a 200MW/800MWh BESS in the Netherlands, which recently entered into a first-of-its-kind agreement with TSO TenneT.

A lot of work and thought still needs to go into maximising the potential for co-location of solar and BESS technology, panellists at the Clean Power 2030 Summit said yesterday (30 June).

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.

Axpo and e-Storage have partnered on a BESS in southern Italy, RES Group has signed a full-scope battery asset management agreement in Sweden, while R.Power has agreed to sell a Poland BESS project to Engie.

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.

Energy Dome has signed its second low-carbon energy supply contract with Google.

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.