Large-scale Sto­rage Con­fe­rence: Sha­ping the Future with Energy Sto­rage

The con­fe­rence show­ca­sed the advan­ced deve­lo­p­ment of sto­rage tech­no­lo­gies and at the same time high­ligh­ted the exis­ting gaps in regu­la­tory deve­lo­p­ment. In 2023, appro­xi­m­ately 1.2 GW of large-scale bat­tery sto­rage capa­city were alre­ady instal­led in Ger­many, and fore­casts sug­gest that this capa­city will increase to 60 GW by 2050, as indi­ca­ted by a study pre­sen­ted during the con­fe­rence by Fron­tier Eco­no­mics. The macroe­co­no­mic bene­fits are expec­ted to amount to at least 12 bil­lion euros by 2050.

The diver­sity of tech­no­logy is there, but regu­la­tion is lack­ing

Various com­pa­nies pre­sen­ted their large-scale sto­rage solu­ti­ons. This included Kyon Energy with grid-con­nec­ted Li-Ion bat­tery large-scale sto­rage, BASF Sta­tio­nary Energy Sto­rage with sodium-sul­fur bat­te­ries, Sie­mens Energy with com­pres­sed air sto­rage, and Vat­ten­fall Was­ser­kraft with pum­ped sto­rage plants. The pre­sen­ta­ti­ons illus­tra­ted the diver­sity of available tech­no­lo­gies and unders­cored the need for tech­no­lo­gi­cal open­ness for effi­ci­ent and meaningful appli­ca­ti­ons in dif­fe­rent areas.

The par­ti­ci­pants empha­si­zed that, despite tech­no­lo­gi­cal pro­gress, the lack of pro­per legal frame­works and regu­la­ti­ons hin­ders the suc­cessful ope­ra­tion of sto­rage sys­tems in Ger­many. In his pre­sen­ta­tion, Andreas Lind­ner from Alli­anz Invest­ment Manage­ment SE explai­ned the neces­sity of ade­quate regu­la­tion for plan­ning and invest­ment secu­rity, citing Aus­tra­lia as a prime exam­ple of such regu­la­tion.

Dr. Flo­rian Valen­tin, Part­ner at the law firm von Bre­dow Valen­tin Herz and spo­kesper­son for the Energy Law Working Group at BVES, high­ligh­ted in his pre­sen­ta­tion the recent deve­lo­p­ments in energy sto­rage law, inclu­ding the energy sto­rage stra­tegy of the Minis­try of Eco­nomy and the decis­ion of the Hig­her Regio­nal Court (OLG) Düs­sel­dorf on the unlawful cal­cu­la­tion method of con­s­truc­tion cost con­tri­bu­ti­ons and the oppor­tu­ni­ties they offer for energy sto­rage.

Poli­ti­cal impe­tus and per­spec­ti­ves

Poli­ti­cal impul­ses from MdB Kon­rad Stock­meier (FDP fac­tion, Bun­des­tag) and MdB Maria-Lena Weiss (CDU/CSU fac­tion, Bun­des­tag) empha­si­zed the incre­asing importance of sto­rage in the poli­ti­cal agenda. Stock­meier refer­red to an acce­le­ra­ted expan­sion of wind and PV wit­hout simul­ta­neous expan­sion of grids and sto­rage as “eco­no­mic­ally sen­se­l­ess.” Maria-Lena Weiss stres­sed the need to gear the energy mar­ket design towards sto­rage and to take all tech­no­lo­gies equally into con­side­ra­tion. Ste­fan Wen­zel, Par­lia­men­tary State Secre­tary at the Minis­try of Eco­nomy, out­lined the next steps for imple­men­ting the elec­tri­city sto­rage stra­tegy in his key­note speech.

The Large-scale Sto­rage Con­fe­rence has demons­tra­ted that the time for com­pre­hen­sive and for­ward-loo­king regu­la­tion has come to pave the way for a sus­tainable energy future. This requi­res a holi­stic and tech­no­logy-open approach that keeps the entire sys­tem in per­spec­tive. The BVES is ready to work tog­e­ther with decis­ion-makers in the BMWK, Bun­des­tag, and BNetzA to find con­s­truc­tive and effec­tive solu­ti­ons.