Energy Storage Europe Association has published its Position Paper on Improving Permitting Procedures, highlighting the urgent need to streamline, harmonise, and modernise permitting frameworks for energy storage across the EU. Europe needs a fast, fair, and future-proof permitting framework to unlock the estimated 200 GW of energy storage required by 2030.
December 2025 / Policy Papers
Position Paper on Grid Connections
Europe’s electricity grids are struggling to keep pace with the rapid growth of renewable energy and electrification. More than 1,700 GW of renewable and hybrid projects are currently waiting for a grid connection across Europe, with stalled and speculative projects occupying scarce capacity and preventing ready-to-build, system-relevant projects—especially energy storage—from connecting. These bottlenecks lead to higher curtailment, rising system costs, and slower progress toward climate and security-of-supply goals.
In this position paper, the Energy Storage Europe Association calls for a shift from today’s “first-come, first-served” queue system to a more efficient, strategic, and transparent framework that recognises the unique value of energy storage for reducing congestion, enhancing flexibility, and making better use of existing grid infrastructure.
To improve Europe’s grid access framework, the Association proposes:
Milestone-based queue management and a use-it-or-lose-it principle
Clearing stalled or speculative projects and reallocating capacity to mature, ready-to-build projects.
Priority lanes for high-value assets like energy storage
Ensuring project assessment reflects system impact, flexibility benefits, and national energy-strategy needs.
Enabling co-location, cable pooling, and simplified connection modifications
Allowing shared or hybrid connection points and streamlined procedures when no additional grid capacity is required.
Transparent and regularly updated hosting-capacity maps
Empowering developers with clear visibility of grid availability, congestion zones, and curtailment levels.
Fit-for-purpose Flexible Connection Agreements (FCAs)
Allowing non-firm connections in congested areas when proportionate, time-bound, and supported by regulatory oversight.
A smarter, more transparent, and storage-ready grid connection framework is essential to accelerating Europe’s energy transition, reducing curtailment, and optimising the use of existing network infrastructure.
Energy Storage Europe Association has published its Position Paper on Improving Permitting Procedures, highlighting the urgent need to streamline, harmonise, and modernise permitting frameworks for energy storage across the EU. Europe needs a fast, fair, and future-proof permitting framework to unlock the estimated 200 GW of energy storage required by 2030.
In this position paper, the Energy Storage Europe Association calls for a shift from today’s “first-come, first-served” queue system to a more efficient, strategic, and transparent framework that recognises the unique value of energy storage for reducing congestion, enhancing flexibility, and making better use of existing grid infrastructure.
Energy Storage Europe Association has published its Position Paper on Improving Permitting Procedures, highlighting the urgent need to streamline, harmonise, and modernise permitting frameworks for energy storage across the EU. Europe needs a fast, fair, and future-proof permitting framework to unlock the estimated 200 GW of energy storage required by 2030.
Energy Storage Europe Association responds to the European Commission’s Public Consultations on the Electrification Action Plan and the Heating and Cooling Strategy, highlighting the need for stronger recognition of storage as a central enabler of electrification and heating decarbonisation. This requires clearer policies to integrate storage into planning and investment pathways, along with measures to remove persistent barriers such as high upfront costs, slow permitting, unfavourable taxation, and weak market signals. Storage should be treated as a default element of a cost-effective, system-friendly transition and reflected accordingly in planning frameworks, financing tools, and flexibility market design.
The 9.5 edition of the European Market Monitor on Energy Storage (EMMES) by the Energy Storage Europe Association and LCP Delta, is now available. The EU, UK, Norway, and Switzerland together are expected to reach 100 GW of installed energy storage in November 2025. This milestone represents enough capacity to meet the peak electricity demand of Germany and the Netherlands. With storage capacity forecast to grow by a further 115% by 2030, this will play a crucial role in Europe’s energy transition, creating more space for renewables on the grid.
