Unleashing Flexibility Needs: How Energy Storage Can Make or Break the Case for Renewables
EASE has prepared a position paper on the Renewable Energy Directive Revision (REDIII) highlighting the great opportunity this review offers in terms of speeding up decarbonisation efforts in the energy system: EASE welcomes the 40% renewable energy targets for 2030, but calls for clearer support for energy storage to step up renewables deployment and ensure security of supply.
EASE believes energy storage can be fostered through RED III in multiple ways. Our key points:
Development of a strategy for energy storage, through a sound methodology assessing flexibility and energy shifting needs;
Definition of co-located storage facility and non-discriminatory treatment in tenders for RES plants;
Support the uptake of RES + storage PPAs and ensure non-discriminatory treatment for the issuing of Guarantees of Origin and green certificates;
Ensure full system integration through the proposed art. 20a;
Include energy storage technologies in the efforts to decarbonise the buildings and transport sectors.
Policymakers need to act quickly in view of the urgent need to decarbonise the European energy system: renewables need to be supported by flexibility technologies and through energy shifting, which only energy storage can provide.
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.
