EU Secures Industry Deal to Grow Energy Storage Capacity
The European Commission has executed a public-private cooperation agreement on energy storage that saw 22 member states commit to enabling the installation of 30-35 gigawatts of capacity over the next 2 years.
Besides European Union governments, the signatories consist of storage developers and manufacturers, renewable energy producers, industrial energy consumers and financial institutions.
"The objective of this first tripartite is to accelerate the deployment of storage in the short term, which will make the electricity system more secure and flexible", the Commission said in an online statement.
"The launch of this tripartite agreement marks another important step towards delivering a decarbonized system that is more efficient and able to deliver cheaper energy".
"Storing energy until it is most needed can improve the integration of renewables and deliver greater benefits to consumers", it added.
The Commission estimates that the EU needs about 200 GW of energy storage capacity by 2030. At the start of this year, the bloc had 55 GW of installed capacity, it said.
Meanwhile the EU Renewable Energy Directive adopted 2023 has set a goal for the share of renewables in the overall regional energy mix to be 45 percent by 2030, of which 42.5 percent is binding and 2.5 percent aspirational.
The new pact, signed on the sidelines of the council of energy ministers in Luxembourg, aims to "reduce system operating costs, ease pressure from high and volatile energy prices on EU businesses, while sending a strong market signal and strengthening EU manufacturing capacity in this sector", the Commission said.
"As part of the agreement, developers of energy storage and renewable energy projects will provide yearly estimates of new energy storage and hybrid projects and their volumes, while energy-consuming industries have committed to developing energy storage projects at their own sites and to giving clearer information about when and how much electricity they use", the Commission said. "This visibility on the projects pipeline is essential to provide clarity and certainty to investors".
Meanwhile member states have committed to offering "cost-reflective and non-discriminatory network tariffs that stimulate flexibility", as well as national and EU funding such as through the Clean Industrial State Aid Framework.
For their part, national and regional banks will promote financing to attract energy storage investors.
"The Commission will support EU Member States in creating funding schemes for storage and help the decarbonization of energy-consuming industries, including through the Industrial Decarbonization Bank", the Commission added.
"It will also explore ways of supporting energy storage deployment under the Innovation Fund, update network rules to encourage storage deployment, and assess possible ways to improve how public sector transition investments match EU environmental objectives when reviewing the Taxonomy Disclosure rules in early 2027".
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