Statement on the European Grids Package

10 December 2025 — Today, the European Commission published the Grids Package, addressing critical bottlenecks in grid connections, permitting, and infrastructure planning. These issues have hampered energy storage deployment and slowed the EU's decarbonisation and affordability ambitions.

Energy Storage Europe Association's Senior Policy Officer Daniel Vig's statement:

On Grid Connections:

“Grid connection priority must be given to projects that address crucial system needs, e.g. congestion relief or curtailment reduction. Energy storage technologies are uniquely positioned to offer these benefits to the grid.”

“Moving from a first-come-first-served approach to a first-ready-first-served model will accelerate the deployment of mature assets and improve network efficiency. The propositions — on queue reform, flexible connection agreements, and recognising system benefits — closely align with the core recommendations of our position paper on grid connections.”

“We strongly support the Commission’s guidance and urge its consistent implementation across all Member States to ensure fair and efficient access to the grid.”

On Permitting Procedures:

“The directive’s permitting deadlines — a maximum of six months for stand-alone energy storage above 100 kW (excluding hydrogen) and up to two years for pumped hydropower storage — are essential to shortening procedures that today can take as long as seven years.”

“The Commission’s proposal to explicitly treat co-located and stand-alone storage assets as projects benefiting from the overriding public interest presumption, further underlines the storage sector’s critical role in delivering system flexibility and security.”

“We also strongly support the obligation for Member States to establish a single national digital permitting portal as highlighted in our position paper on permitting.”

On Network Planning: 

“We welcome that the revised TEN-E proposition requires non-wire and flexibility solutions, including storage, to be reflected in the European network development plans and cost–benefit analyses. However, this recognition is not matched by easier access to PCI status: the size thresholds for electricity storage PCIs remain unchanged and prohibitively high, and there is still no tailored methodology to value storage’s cross-border system benefits.”