We spoke with Mariyana Yaneva, Chief Operating Officer at IPS.
IPS is a Strategic Partner of the Battery Storage Europe Platform, offering advanced, turn‑key battery storage solutions that are engineered, developed and manufactured with a strong emphasis on performance, reliability and scalability. IPS is committed not only to designing advanced battery storage solutions but also to leading European manufacturing in this field. The company has established the first dedicated BESS gigafactory in Bulgaria, recognised by the European Commission as a Strategic Project under the Net‑Zero Industry Act, with an initial annual production capacity of several gigawatt‑hours and planned expansion to meet growing demand for sovereign, European‑made storage solutions.
Why is battery storage important to IPS?
IPS is a true pioneer in the integration of renewable energy and energy storage for advanced microgrid solutions. As early as 2014, the company won the first-ever energy storage innovation award at the Intersolar Europe trade fair, standing out among more than 1,300 global contenders. This recognition reflected not only a technological breakthrough, but also a strategic conviction that storage would become a central pillar of the future energy system.
For us, the shift towards manufacturing grid-scale battery storage systems is a natural evolution of our business. IPS was built around the idea of delivering resilient, efficient and autonomous power solutions in environments where reliability is non-negotiable – in critical infrastructure, industry, defence and remote applications. In the modern context, battery storage enables exactly that – it transforms renewable generation from an intermittent resource into a controllable, dispatchable asset.
IPS is a Strategic Partner of the Battery Storage Europe Platform — why did you choose to join?
For IPS, joining the Battery Storage Europe Platform is a forward-looking decision. As the saying goes: “Alone, the world changes you; together, you change the world.” As a company that has been delivering integrated, turnkey energy solutions for over four decades, we are acutely aware that the challenges ahead cannot be addressed in isolation.
These challenges span the entire energy value chain, from demonstrating to grid operators the full range of capabilities that energy storage can provide for grid stability, through shaping market designs that properly value storage as a new and versatile asset class, to strengthening energy security through resilient supply chains and circular, sustainable manufacturing models.
We chose to partner with this platform because it brings together a diverse and influential community of stakeholders from across the battery storage ecosystem, and provides a space in which concrete, actionable solutions are developed and communicated directly to policymakers and decision-makers.
Our participation reflects IPS’s commitment to actively contributing to the development of shared standards, regulatory frameworks and market mechanisms that will unlock the full potential of battery energy storage in Europe, with a clear focus on fostering innovative, competitive and resilient European manufacturing for this critical component of the future power grid.
Why do we need more battery storage in Europe?
Europe’s energy landscape is transforming at unprecedented speed. The share of variable renewable generation – wind, solar, and increasingly hybrid systems with integrated storage – continues to grow. While this transition is essential, it also brings new complexity: generation patterns are less predictable, flexibility requirements are rising, and conventional grid assets are being pushed to their operational limits.
Battery energy storage is a cornerstone technology for managing this complexity. It provides the flexibility modern power systems require – balancing supply and demand in real time, smoothing volatility, deferring or avoiding costly grid reinforcements, and enabling higher shares of renewable generation to connect without compromising grid stability or security of supply.
Beyond its technical role, battery storage is fundamental to Europe’s strategic autonomy in energy. It reduces dependence on imported fossil fuels, strengthens control over critical energy infrastructure, and enables a more distributed, resilient and responsive power system capable of withstanding both market and geopolitical shocks.
For these benefits to fully materialise, Europe must not only accelerate the deployment of battery storage – it must also build it at home. Developing a strong European battery energy storage industry is essential to securing supply chains, safeguarding critical know-how, and ensuring that manufacturing capacity, high-quality jobs and the majority of the economic value created by the energy transition remain in Europe.
Battery storage is not merely a technical enabler of the energy transition; it is a strategic infrastructure asset. Investing simultaneously in large-scale deployment and in European manufacturing of BESS is a decisive step towards Europe’s energy sovereignty, industrial competitiveness and long-term sustainability.
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