Grid Fees and Network Tariffs

Energy storage is a key enabler of the European Union’s decarbonisation and energy security objectives, yet current grid fee structures often act as barriers to its deployment. This position paper outlines critical challenges related to network tariffs and charges that create market distortions and discourage much-needed investments in flexibility.

Energy Storage Europe Association calls on policymakers and regulators to urgently address these issues by ensuring a level playing field for energy storage. In particular, the paper advocates for:

• The application of non-discriminatory, cost-reflective grid tariffs and levies that reflect the system benefits of flexibility providers, such as energy storage, with a preference for Time-of-Use tariffs where feasible, given their simplicity, predictability, and implementation.
• The design of Time-of-Use tariffs should place particular emphasis on accurately capturing system peak periods, ensuring that storage and flexibility providers are incentivised to respond where their value is highest.
• A coordinated approach to setting injection and withdrawal charges — ensuring they are designed and aligned in relation to each other in a consistent and proportionate manner — to avoid undue penalisation of flexibility providers, such as storage facilities.
• Clear EU-level design of tariff methodologies for electricity network charges for Member States to improve consistency and facilitate integration of storage into the grid.

These recommendations build on existing EU commitments. The outlined reforms to grid fee structures accelerate the energy transition, unlock the full potential of energy storage and reduce network costs.