Europe’s energy storage market has hit a turning point. What was once a scattered, early-phase market featuring pilot projects and daring developers has swiftly evolved into a dynamic, capital-intensive infrastructure sector, writes Wood Mackenzie research associate Cecilie Kristiansen.
That was the view of Søren Juel Hansen, energy storage director at Nordic Solar, when asked by Energy-Storage.news about the role of transmission system operators (TSO) in the industry.
“Standalone solar is not dead, but it is challenging,” said Pierre Bartholin, head of power hedging at investor Nuveen Infrastructure, opening the debate at Solar Media’s Solar Finance Investment Europe (SFIE) conference in London on the future of co-located battery storage.
Power firm RWE is about to start building a 400MW/800MWh BESS project in Germany, among the largest in the country to reach the construction stage. In related news, Kyon Energy has connected a 282MWh project to the grid, possibly the largest in the country to reach that milestone.
Leading BESS owner-operators across Europe discuss the key trends around the financing and deployment of grid-scale projects, with the segment now the driver of continent-wide deployments according to trade body SolarPower Europe.
Bigger, longer-duration projects and more sophisticated deal structuring are driving the energy storage industry forward, but a lack of common approaches from transmission system operators (TSOs) remains a challenge.
Another roundup of European grid-scale BESS project news, led by MORE and Zenobe putting Greece and UK projects into operation, and major project financings/construction starts by Acacia in France, Greenvolt in Hungary and Eco Stor in Germany.
While the UK grid-scale BESS market continues to be among the busiest in Europe, there are still huge questions and plenty work to be done in several key policy areas.
