BVES state­ment: Moder­nize the grid con­nec­tion pro­cess NOW!

Ten­neT was also right to raise the issue of con­s­truc­tion sub­si­dies. The cur­rent regu­la­ti­ons create false incen­ti­ves and sys­te­ma­ti­cally dis­ad­van­tage sto­rage facilities—not only in the north, but nati­on­wide. A sus­tainable elec­tri­city mar­ket can no lon­ger afford this.

Expan­sion areas & prio­ri­tiza­tion

It remains unclear why net­work ope­ra­tors are not proac­tively secu­ring expan­sion areas—after all, the incre­asing demand for infra­struc­ture has been known for a long time, not just since yes­ter­day. We the­r­e­fore believe that the idea of prio­ri­tiz­ing con­nec­tion requests is fun­da­men­tally cor­rect. Howe­ver, this must not trig­ger tech­no­logy wars. Sto­rage faci­li­ties should be ran­ked above end con­su­mers. This is the only way to reduce elec­tri­city costs and reli­eve the bur­den on grids. Non-dis­cri­mi­na­tory pro­ce­du­res are not a “nice to have” but a must. The pro­ce­dure plan­ned by 50Hertz has alre­ady shown how quickly sto­rage faci­li­ties can be unf­airly dis­ad­van­ta­ged.

Regar­ding Kraft­NAV: Not a total fail­ure for sto­rage, but not a per­fect fit eit­her. Tog­e­ther with the indus­try, we are ready to help deve­lop a more tail­o­red approach. Howe­ver, abo­li­shing it at short notice wit­hout a repla­ce­ment would cause fur­ther uncer­tainty and signi­fi­cantly slow down the ramp-up of sto­rage.

Grid fees: Yes to costs, no to invest­ment kil­lers

The same prin­ci­ple must apply to grid fees: yes to cost reflec­tion, no to invest­ment kil­lers. The sto­rage mar­ket is still in its infancy: just around 2 GW are curr­ently con­nec­ted to the grid. Tigh­tening the fee screw now would nip growth in the bud.

Fle­xi­bi­lity is key for the rene­wa­ble energy sys­tem: Fle­xi­ble grid con­nec­tions enable more sto­rage in the grid, mea­sur­a­bly reduce the load on it—and all wit­hout com­pen­sa­tion pay­ments to ope­ra­tors. #FLEXIL­LI­ENZ