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.
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.
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.
Lenders are increasingly willing to back large-scale BESS projects in Germany that don’t have any contracted revenues, although that merchant risk is priced in to structures, an executive at Aquila Clean Energy EMEA said.
Large-scale BESS projects have been progressed in Italy, Romania, Germany, Poland, Denmark and elsewhere in Europe, totalling around 1GW under construction, 1GWh soon to be, and another 1GWh at earlier stages.
BayWa r.e. will manage and maintain Germany’s largest operational BESS when it comes online later this year, while Terra One has started building a smaller project in the same state.
We catch up with James Mills, managing director of UK BESS investor Adaptogen Capital, about UK market dynamics, its expansion into Europe, and BESS capex in 2026 and beyond.
A quartet of Germany BESS project announcements: Green Flexibility has completed a project, Suncatcher has enlisted Statkraft to optimise three solar-plus-storage ones, SWB and Be.storaged are together building a system, while ArcelorMittal has enlisted EDF Power Solutions to do so.
Large-scale BESS projects have been progressed to construction, financing or operations across the EU this week, by project owners, investors and EPC firms re:cap, LONGi, Teos, Flower, Goldbeck Solar, SPP and Tavion.
