On Thursday 13 November, SolarPower Europe and the Battery Storage Europe Platform hosted industry experts, grid operators, regulators and representatives from the European Commission, European Parliament, European Investment Bank (EIB) and Member States, for a series of roundtable exchanges on shaping the future of flexibility and battery storage in Europe.
This is a key step in the journey towards 10X Battery Storage in Europe. The timely event coincided with the launch of the new paper ‘Flexibility: Strengthening the Grid with Battery Storage and Demand Response’ setting out a concrete roadmap to fully unlock flexibility and storage to help Europe build a secure, affordable, and clean energy system.
The paper highlights the Battery Storage Europe Platform’s call for a dedicated Battery Storage Action Plan within the EU’s Flexibility Strategy. This would look like:
- Permitting rules that facilitate retrofitting existing renewable energy plants with batteries
- Grid tariffs that reflect battery storage’s system value, avoiding double charges
- Grid stability markets that procure stability services from batteries
- Industrial policies that support European production and strategic partnerships
- Safety and quality standards that are clear and harmonised across Europe
- Circularity policies and waste streams that make full use of the Single Market
During the Strategy Day at our offices in Brussels, we heard from a range of experts who shared views on the future of battery storage in Europe.
Dries Acke, Deputy CEO, SolarPower Europe opened the discussions by highlighting the central role battery storage plays in Europe’s energy transition:
“Battery storage is a game-changing technology, and our new paper gives a 360° perspective on batteries. Alongside deployment, we need to work together to have European financing and battery storage that is manufactured in Europe.”
MEP Bruno Tobback shared his insights on flexibility and storage, saying:
“Battery storage should be an obvious quick win for flexibility! Let’s not forget why flexibility is needed: to maximise the production and use of electricity in Europe. With flexibility, we can easily decrease the electricity prices for EU households.”
Antonio Arruebo, Energy Storage Market Analyst at SolarPower Europe, presented some data on the European battery storage market.
“Batteries are the technology of the decade and they play a central role in enabling the deployment of renewable energy. What we need now is to scale up deployment rapidly, increasing Europe’s battery storage fleet tenfold by 2030.”
Mariyana Yaneva from IPS, a strategic partner of the BSEP, said:
“Battery storage is a catalyst for energy security and resilience in Europe. Having a long-term business case for the energy transition is key. It is possible to be competitive in Europe but we need to address the difficult barrier of aligning regulation and requirements across the different markets.”
SolarPower Europe CEO summed up the day’s discussions stating:
“We are at the brink of unleashing a revolution. We have good frameworks in Europe, but we must now focus on implementing them across all Member States. Today is just the beginning of what we hope will be continued collaboration to accelerate battery storage in Europe, along with solar and flexibility.”
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