The EU has to put its batteries: Brussels asks the 27 to accelerate the development of energy storage
The European Commission has issued 10 recommendations for countries to get their act together and develop storage.
Brussels has asked Member States to step on the accelerator in the development and deployment of energy storage in the Old Continent.
In the document to which this medium has had access, the Commission underlines the role, which they describe as fundamental, of the flexibility that storage can provide to the electrical system. This flexibility helps to adapt to changing needs and ensures that electricity consumption matches electrical power generation.
In addition, storage can reduce electricity prices during peak hours and allow consumers to adjust their energy consumption to prices and needs.
Recommendations
In this way, the European Commission makes a series of recommendations, with concrete actions, that the countries of the Union can develop to guarantee their greater deployment.
The recommendations that the EC has presented are divided into 10 points:
- Avoid double taxation and facilitate permit-granting procedures.
- Determine the flexibility needs of their energy systems in the short, medium, and long term and reinforce in the updates of the national energy and climate plans the objectives and the related policies and measures aimed at promoting in a cost-effective manner the deployment of energy storage, demand response, and flexibility, as well as assessing manufacturing capacity needs for relevant energy storage technologies.
- Ensure that energy system operators further assess the flexibility needs of their energy systems when planning transmission and distribution networks, including the potential for energy storage (short and long term) and whether energy storage can be a more profitable alternative to investments in the network
- Determine potential funding gaps for short-, medium-, and long-term energy storage, and other flexibility instruments.
- Study whether energy storage services -particularly the use of flexibility in distribution networks and the provision of ancillary services not related to a frequency- are sufficiently remunerated and whether operators can add the remuneration of various services.
- Explore the possibility of using competitive bidding processes if necessary to achieve a sufficient level of deployment of sources of flexibility to achieve transparent security of supply and environmental objectives, in line with state aid rules. And explore possible improvements in the design of capacity mechanisms to facilitate the participation of sources of flexibility, including energy storage, in line with the Guidelines on state aid related to climate, environmental protection, and energy.
- Determine the specific regulatory and non-regulatory measures needed to remove barriers to storage and demand response deployment.
- Accelerate the deployment of storage facilities and other flexibility tools in islands, remote areas, and outermost regions of the EU, areas with insufficient network capacity and unstable or long-distance connections to the main network, and review the criteria for connection to the network to promote hybrid energy projects.
- Publish in real-time detailed data on grid congestion, renewable energy restriction, market prices, renewable energy content, and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as installed energy storage facilities, to facilitate investment decisions in new energy storage facilities.
- Support research and innovation in energy storage, and explore risk reduction instruments, such as technology acceleration programs and specific support schemes that guide innovative energy storage technologies to the commercialization phase.
Work document
The European Commission’s energy storage recommendations are accompanied by a working document on energy storage. The latter offers a more detailed analysis and also provides insight into the current European Union regulatory, market, and financial framework for energy storage. In turn, it identifies barriers, opportunities, and best practices for its development and implementation.
