Why energy storage is a strategic priority for Europe

**Pamela Largue** (0:12)
As electricity systems around the world accelerate their shift towards renewable energy, one technology is rapidly moving from the sidelines to center stage, and that's energy storage. Once considered a niche part of the power system, storage is now recognized as a strategic asset that reinforces energy security, grid stability, affordability and decarbonization. But just how quickly is the sector evolving? And what does the latest data tell us about how Europe's storage sector is tracking?
In this episode of the Energy Transitions Podcast, I speak to Jacopo Tosoni, Deputy Secretary General at Energy Storage Europe, about the latest European Market Monitor for Energy Storage Report. Together, we unpack the remarkable growth of Europe's storage market, explore why countries such as the UK, Italy and Germany are leading deployment, and discuss the policies needed to unlock even greater investment. We also examine Europe's competitive advantage in storage innovation, and why despite the challenges that remain, there is a good reason to be optimistic about the decade ahead. I'm Pamela Largue, and this is the Energy Transitions Podcast.
Energy Transitions Jacopo, thank you so much for joining me today to talk about energy storage, which is really an increasingly important topic in our global energy transition. And more specifically, we're talking about the latest European Market Monitor for Energy Storage Report. So I think it would be a good idea to start just by giving us an idea of what the key findings were in that report. And of course, maybe just a bit of introduction for our listeners.

**Jacopo Tosoni** (2:02)
Sure, glad to be here. As Energy Storage Europe, we cooperate with LCP Delta in producing the European Market Monitor for Energy Storage. It's been 10 years that we do it. So we started when, indeed, Energy Storage was a very, very small kid. No one was really paying attention to it. But I think this report really shows that things have changed. We have Energy Storage overtaking nuclear in terms of power capacity installed. I mean, it's power capacity, so gigawatt, not gigawatt-hour, but still it's a good sign that tells where the sector is going, maybe. Energy Storage has already reached 100 gigawatt just a few months back, so in December of 2025 And we see that the growth, it's pretty dramatic. I mean, compared to just five years ago, we're talking five to six to seven times the amount of new installed energy storage capacity. A lot of the growth is driven by electrochemical storage that's really expanded rapidly. Historically, of course, Europe has pump hydro, it's the substantial, mature technology. But there is also new solutions, especially looking at long-duration energy storage that are reaching the market, becoming more and more important. And that's maybe something to keep an eye on for the next few years and then for the 2030s. I think we really see new markets also happening, becoming more important, I mean. Historically, we've always focused on certain markets like Great Britain, Italy, Germany. But now, Poland and Belgium are growing, and growing especially in front of the meter. That's maybe really the engine of growth. In the past, of course, beyond the meter was dominant. But now, maybe this is changing quite fast. The market itself is becoming quite mature.
We see the project duration becoming longer.
We have an average duration of between two and three hours. But that's going to increase, and we expect three hours project becoming the norm in the next few years. We're also starting to see maybe new models to get revenues. Tolling agreements, revenue floors is becoming much more common. Also, maybe the complexity, let's say, of these solutions or these types of contracts is increasing. But again, that's pretty normal with a maturing technology. And as I was saying before, we would like to suggest to keep an eye on the commercial and industrial sectors.
The technologies are there, probably. There's still a lot of challenges from commercial perspective, CAPES, maybe network charges, actually being able to access the different markets, but it's increasing. Finally, maybe the big important thing is the integration with renewables.
The deployment is maybe now more than ever tied with solar and wind uptake.
We've seen negative price periods. We see big challenges with grid congestion. And I think there's more and more awareness from project developer side, but to be fair also from policy makers, that renewables and storage to a great extent go hand in hand.

**Pamela Largue** (5:46)
I have so many questions and aspects of that summary that I'd like to delve into. Okay, but first, let me ask this. It seems that energy storage is becoming more of a strategic priority, or it's viewed with more strategic importance. You know, you did mention, as opposed to maybe a few years back, where it was less so.