Battery Business & Development Forum

Investments in battery energy storage come from a wide spectrum of capital sources, and understanding who’s backing these assets is essential to grasping the evolving landscape. In this session, you’ll gain insights into how institutional investors assess opportunities and manage risks across major markets. You’ll also learn how regional players – including family offices, local banks, and private equity providers – are financing smaller-scale projects or co-investing alongside developers. Key focus areas include gaining investor visibility, identifying routes to market for BESS assets, and understanding what project criteria are essential now – and will be for future financing. 

This session will explore Europe’s most lucrative markets for battery energy storage and the diverse routes to market available. From fully merchant operations to partially contracted revenues through capacity market procurements and rigid tolling agreements, there are multiple ways to commercialize battery storage assets. We will examine the advantages and drawbacks of these options and assess their viability across different European markets. Additionally, the session will address the evolving landscape of monetization pathways, highlighting how the emergence or disappearance of certain revenue streams could reshape the economics of operating projects. 

Securing timely and unconstrained grid connections has emerged as one of the most critical challenges for advancing battery storage projects in Germany. This session brings together leading grid operators and BESS developers to examine the current landscape of grid connection approvals, the evolving AgNeS process, and the potential impact of upcoming tariff reforms on project timelines and investment certainty. Participants will also discuss how the Baukostenzuschuss (BKZ) affects project economics, how it influences financial viability, and which practical strategies and workarounds developers are currently employing to manage these costs and accelerate deployment. 

Banks are increasingly backing battery energy storage systems. However, as batteries are often held back by complex regulatory frameworks, accessing non-recourse financing remains challenging. Developing a credit solution is difficult due to the constantly evolving nature of the BESS revenue stack, with bankers holding varied perspectives on lending conditions, market risks, and technical guarantees. This session will explore how banks evaluate different routes to market and provide insights into the progress of merchant bankability compared to the growing reliance on tolling agreements and contractual hedges, both now and in the years to come.

Representatives from the EU and industry associations will discuss Europe’s upcoming regulatory priorities and market design for battery storage. The session explores how EU strategies - under all relevant policy frameworks, including a dedicated Energy Storage Strategy under preparation — aim to scale storage deployment, strengthen flexibility markets, and accelerate integration into a resilient, renewables-based power system across EU member states. 

Batteries are set to redefine resilience at utility and residential level. This session outlines where markets for grid services, such as grid forming and voltage control, are established or emerging – e.g. Germany from 2026 and beyond, and other mandatory markets- and how they enhance system stability. Experts explore the role of grid services in strengthening energy systems – providing a market outlook as well as technology insights on implementation pathways for power electronics and system-level solutions for future-proof grid operations. 

From the UK to Italy and Bulgaria, this session highlights the policies, business models, and financing strategies powering Europe’s most dynamic storage markets. Hear from developers and policymakers about how local regulation, price signals and grid strategies foster deployment, what lessons can be learned from mature markets, and where new growth opportunities are emerging across the continent. 

As Europe rapidly expands its battery storage fleet and looks to increase domestic production, supply chain security becomes essential. This session looks at measures taken to make the EU more independent in sourcing critical raw materials for BESS components and how the framework conditions to facilitate recycling  and circular economy in BESS need to evolve. This session will assess how EU legislation such as the Batteries Regulation, the Circular Economy Act and the RESource EU Action Plan affect businesses and whether they can contribute sufficiently to providing European manufacturers with access to the quantity and quality of critical raw materials needed to ensure diversification.   

Dive into a hands-on, interactive workshop where developers, equity investors, banks, and market analysts co-create a financing plan for a hypothetical battery energy storage project, using Germany as a practical example. The session tackles the core question: how to reach price agreements in today’s storage landscape. Participants will test revenue stacks and financing structures against real market benchmarks, including concrete revenue calculations. The audience plays an active role, discussing alternative structures linked to real project examples, while opening insights provide a comparative look at optimizer quality. This workshop offers practical tools, actionable insights, and a deep dive into financing storage projects in Europe today. 

As grid access tightens and price volatility quickly grows across Europe, co-locating batteries with PV is emerging as a smart way to go. By sharing grid connections, boosting revenues through energy shifting and ancillary services, and reducing curtailment, co-location enhances both profitability and flexibility. This session explores the regulatory, technical, and commercial advantages of hybrid renewable assets across Europe. Experts will discuss where co-location is already viable, leading markets, and key regulatory hurdles in permitting and grid connection. We will explore system value, comparing hybrid PPAs and emerging business models to market-optimized stand-alone batteries. 

Building a strong domestic battery manufacturing base is critical to Europe’s energy autonomy. This session unpacks EU policies such as NZIA, CISAF and EU-made bonuses, addressing competitiveness, skills, and raw material challenges. Battery manufacturers and policymakers share insights on needs, targets, project designation and lessons learned at home and from Asia and the U.S., outlining potential pathways to bankability and industrial strength.

Ensuring high technical and operational standards for BESS systems is essential to maintain and increase bankability, particularly in the context of strong cost pressure and rapid market growth across Europe. As investors and lenders increasingly scrutinise project risks, transparent technical due diligence, robust design practices, and clear risk mitigation frameworks become critical. While formal standardisation plays an important role, it takes time to develop and implement. In the meantime, effective knowledge sharing and industry guidelines are critical to reflect current best practices and lessons learned across the BESS value chain. This session highlights key technical and risk-related considerations impacting BESS bankability. The discussion will underline how shared knowledge can reduce perceived risks, support informed investment decisions, and strengthen confidence among financiers, insurers, and project developers contributing both to reliable BESS deployment today and to future standardisation efforts.

With grid connection bottlenecks worsening, co-location is poised for unprecedented growth – offering a major opportunity to enhance the value of generated electricity. This will become even more critical as the current grid fee exemption for storage is expected to phase out after 2029. In this session, we will explore the wide range of emerging business models in Germany. By April, the next Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) reform will have taken shape, and we will discuss its implications for storage in tendered projects under the new support framework. We will also examine the economics and financing of renewable-only storage, merchant models, and hybrid PV + storage PPAs. The session will highlight different structuring options and shed light on how banks, technology providers, and offtakers evaluate the opportunities and risks of these evolving models. 

Experience has shown that future-proof project design is essential for battery storage. As the market matures, some revenue streams will diminish while new opportunities emerge, requiring developers to design assets with built-in flexibility – ready to adapt to evolving market dynamics and grid needs. This session explores system design strategies, highlighting how technical choices shape long-term value. Speakers will also examine the challenges of augmenting and retrofitting existing PV systems with battery storage. The discussion will further evaluate the commercial potential of multi-market systems and consider strategies for balancing capital investment with operational efficiency.