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European Commission Enters Deal With States, Developers, Industry for Faster Energy Storage Rollout

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The European Commission has reached a tripartite agreement with several member states, storage developers and industrial consumers to accelerate deployment of energy storage in the short term, it said in a statement on Friday.

The agreement was signed on while EU energy ministers met in Luxembourg and aimed to make the bloc's electricity networks more secure and flexible and their power more affordable, while advancing progress on energy decarbonization.

The statement described energy storage as "the missing link" in the energy transition, playing a key role in lowering and stabilizing energy prices.

The statement also frames it as a means of reducing "dependency on volatile fossil fuel markets", echoing commission chief Ursula von der Leyen's vow to boost domestic energy production after the disruption to supply by the Iran war.

"Storing energy until it is most needed can improve the integration of renewables and deliver greater benefits to consumers," the statement said.

The agreement will make a "favourable business environment for scaling up storage quickly and at scale across Europe," the statement said, without specifying what concessions it will offer to achieve this.

It said a further benefit would be the strong market signal this commitment gives to energy equipment manufacturers in the EU.

The statement said that 22 EU member states have made "ambitious pledges" under the deal in terms of energy storage additions for the next two years, which together sum 30-35 gigawatts of capacity.

Energy storage and renewables developers will provide annual estimates of their forthcoming capacity additions while energy-intensive industries will help develop energy projects on their own sites.

Such visibility around project pipelines will give clarity and certainty to investors, the statement said.

Member states have also committed to providing financial support for energy storage and manufacturing through their own resources and EU funding, in line with state aid rules.

The EU needs an estimated 20 GW of energy storage capacity by 2030 to meet system needs. At the start of this year, cumultive installations summed about 55 GW.

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