Battery Business & Development Forum

Capital for battery storage is available — but it is becoming more selective. Starting with a European market outlook, this session brings together infrastructure funds, utilities, and mid-market investors to discuss where capital is flowing, how risk appetite is changing, and what developers need to deliver to secure funding today. 

What you will discuss: 

• Which European markets are currently attracting capital — and which are being avoided

• How institutional investors assess merchant risk, regulation, and pipeline quality

• What typically makes investors walk away from a deal

• What “investment-ready” means today for mid-sized BESS projects (e.g. 40–60 MW)

• How smaller developers can access equity and scale into institutional capital

Revenue models for battery storage are evolving — but not all of them are equally reliable, scalable, or financeable. This session breaks down the three dominant routes-to-market in Europe and examines where they work in practice, how they are structured, and what risks they carry. 

What you will discuss: 

• How reliable merchant revenues really are over a 10-year horizon and which assumptions are often wrong

• Whether capacity markets provide meaningful downside protection and if models like Poland could work elsewhere

• How tolling agreements are actually negotiated: key risk allocation, pricing challenges, and deal-breakers

• What makes structured offtake agreements “bankable” and where negotiations typically fail 

• Which routes-to-market are currently viable in Germany vs. other European markets

Batteries are transforming power system resilience at both utility and residential scales. This session highlights their growing role in grid stability, including grid-forming, voltage control, congestion management and system support across transmission and distribution networks. The discussion will identify established and emerging markets for these services, such as in Germany from 2026, detailing their impact on inverter-based systems. Experts will assess how large-scale and distributed batteries complement each other, offering a market overview and technology perspectives, and will outline pathways for implementing power electronics and control systems for secure, flexible grid operations.

Debt for battery storage is available, but conditions are changing as merchant exposure increases and revenue structures become more complex. This session brings together banks, developers, offtakers and investors to discuss what is currently financeable, how contracts are structured in practice, and where expectations diverge. 

What you will discuss: 

• How much merchant exposure banks are currently willing to accept  

• What makes a tolling agreement truly bankable in practice  

• Where expectations between banks, offtakers and developers typically diverge  

• How financing structures change when revenue uncertainty increases  

• Whether refinancing and new structures can unlock projects without long-term contracts  

• At what point a project becomes too risky even for equity  

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. 

From the UK to Italy, Bulgaria, and Spain, this session highlights the policies and revenue streams driving Europe’s most dynamic and promising utility-scale battery storage markets. Hear from market analysts, industry lobbyists, developers, and technology providers about how local regulation, price signals, and different grid services are fostering deployment, what lessons can be learned from these key European markets, and where new growth opportunities are emerging across the continent.

Grid connection remains one of the central bottlenecks for battery storage in Germany. At the same time, new instruments such as flexible connection agreements (FCA) and upcoming changes in grid fees are reshaping how projects are developed, assessed and financed. This session brings together regulators, grid operators and developers to discuss how the system currently works and where it is heading. 

What you will discuss: 

• How FCA agreements are currently negotiated in practice and where uncertainty remains  

• Whether FCA can become a standardized and investable framework  

• How grid operators and developers assess risk, predictability and cooperation  

• What to expect from upcoming reforms (AgNeS, grid fees) and how they affect project economics 

• What developers should do today to make projects robust under changing rules  

Innovation in battery storage is increasingly driven by new market entrants developing technologies, software and business models across the value chain. In this fast-paced session, selected start-ups present their solutions and explain how they position themselves in a competitive and rapidly evolving market. 

Each company gives a short pitch, followed by brief discussion and feedback from the moderator. 

What you will discuss: 

• Which specific problems in the BESS value chain new companies are addressing  

• How software tools and AI-based approaches can support areas such as performance analysis or O&M  

• How new solutions aim to improve project returns, scalability or operational efficiency  

• Which applications and customer segments these companies are targeting  

• How these approaches fit into today’s storage market 

Networking, Drinks and Dinner

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.   

This interactive session moves from discussion to application. Based on real-world assumptions, analysts present two battery storage projects — one stand-alone and one co-located with PV. A panel of banks, investors, developers and optimizers, together with the audience, assesses whether these projects are financeable — and under which conditions. 

Participants follow the full decision process: from cost assumptions and revenue stacks to risk allocation and financing structure. The session makes transparent how different stakeholders evaluate the same project and where views diverge. 

What you will discuss: 

• How realistic revenue assumptions hold up under current market conditions  

• Which risks (grid, regulation, market) most affect financing decisions  

• What banks, investors and optimizers require to support a project  

• How financing structures change depending on revenue mix and uncertainty  

• Where projects fail to convince — and what would make them investable  

As grid access tightens and price volatility quickly grows across Europe, hybridising 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, hybridisation enhances both profitability and flexibility. This session explores the regulatory, technical, and commercial advantages of hybrid solar and storage assets across Europe. Experts will discuss where hybridisation 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-optimised 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.

As grid constraints increase and regulatory frameworks evolve, co-location of PV and battery storage is becoming a key development pathway in Germany. But the business case is not yet fully established. This session examines how different models perform in practice and under which conditions they become financeable. 

What you will discuss: 

• How the upcoming EEG reform and tender design may affect co-located projects  

• Whether adding storage to PV creates measurable economic value 

• How hybrid PPAs are structured and what makes them work in practice  

• How banks and offtakers assess co-located projects compared to stand-alone BESS  

• Which project setups are currently viable in Germany 

Technical decisions made early in a battery storage project have long-term consequences for performance, reliability and revenue. This session examines how procurement, system design and construction choices affect project outcomes — and what developers should do differently. 

The session is structured in two parts: first, a focus on procurement and component quality, including insights from factory audits; second, real-world cases from operating projects, analysing where design assumptions failed and how issues could have been avoided. 

What you will discuss: 

• What developers should prioritize when procuring batteries and key components — including insights from factory audits  

• Which design choices have the biggest impact on long-term performance and flexibility  

• How to prepare systems for augmentation and changing market requirements  

• Typical issues observed in real projects, including SOC errors, PCS configuration, thermal management and control system integration  

• How to align EPC, system integration and operational strategy from the start