A European Parliament committee voted to back legislative amendments to support energy storage and non-fossil flexibility on Wednesday. This is ahead of negotiations on the upcoming Electricity Market Design.
The changes, agreed by the Industry, Research and Energy Committee, introduces new provisions to support the deployment of flexible technologies, including energy storage. Non-fossil flexibility is the ability of the power grid to adjust to changes in supply and demand without relying on fossil fuels.
Flexibility on the demand side can involve the use of home battery systems. The EU sees this as a way to help balance the electricity grid.
The European energy storage association, EASE, said member states’ powers to set up non-fossil flexibility support schemes provide “a solid business case” for energy storage. They must now assess the flexibility needed in the electricity system for further sources of renewable energy in line with 2030 climate goals, it said.
Crucially, they must set a national objective for energy storage. The European Commission will introduce an EU-wide strategy for harmonised energy storage from 2025.
EASE Policy Officer Thomas Lewis said: “The introduction of flexibility support schemes will give investors’ confidence in energy storage technologies to provide the flexibility needed to integrate further renewable energy.
The Energy Storage Coalition welcomed the report but said there was a missed opportunity to tackle hurdles to the deployment of energy storage. These include double charging on energy storage (both when it consumes and produces), which does not apply to fossil generation.
“Support for energy storage is essential to increase the fast-paced deployment of renewable energy solutions and move away from fossil fuels. It is estimated that to achieve the EU’s Fit for 55 and REPowerEU objectives, energy storage capacity must double by 2030 to achieve the forecasted demand of 200 GW by 2030,” it said.
