We hear from the BESS lead at RWE Renewables Europe & Australia ahead of the Energy Storage Summit Germany 2026, discussing the major trends, challenges and opportunities in the country’s grid-scale storage market. 

Germany will have its first capacity market (CM) auction in September this year, following confirmation from the country’s energy regulator.

UK battery storage projects won a combined 1.8GW of capacity market (CM) obligations across the T-1 and T-4 auctions.

The Capacity Market (CM) in Germany will offer a new potential revenue stream for BESS, but not all developers and owner-operators are convinced.

Utility and power generation firm Engie has started construction on a 100MW/400MWh BESS project in Belgium, for which it has enlisted system integrator NHOA Energy to provide the BESS.

BESS owner-operator BW ESS and developer ACL Energy have expanded their development pipeline in Italy to 2.9GW.

Capacity market (CM) auctions have concluded in Italy and Belgium and battery energy storage system (BESS) projects won the lion’s share of new contracts.

While everyone agrees the capacity market (CM) is the foundation of the business case for BESS in Poland, that might not always be the case, one developer suggested.

We hear from IPP Greenvolt about its big wins for BESS projects in last year’s capacity market (CM) auction in Poland.

Econergy will soon start construction on a 50MW BESS project in Poland, the first of that scale to reach this stage in the market, the Israel-based IPP claimed.