Financing Energy Storage Will Be Key to the Efficiency of the Energy Transition

On 8 November 2017 the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) organised in Brussels its first Energy Storage Investor Workshop. More than 50 delegates from all across Europe and worldwide attended the workshop, where 13 speakers from financial institutions, industry and representatives of the European Commission, the European Investment Bank and the European Parliament presented.

The workshop effectively provided an outlook of the current state of the energy storage market, presenting the multiple revenue streams available to energy storage projects as well as the different instruments for the mitigation of techno-economic and financial risks. The European Investment Bank presented a.o. the InnovFin Energy Demonstration Projects instrument, providing loans for the deployment of technologies and/or projects at early stages of commercialisation.

The workshop offered a concrete meeting opportunity for investors and project developers. Five investors presented their inside perspective on the requirements for investing in energy storage projects and five project developers had the opportunity to directly pitch their products to the investors and to the audience. A matchmaking session enabled them to further explore collaborations.

Megan Richards, Director of Energy Policy in DG Energy (ENER) of the European Commission stressed the importance of financing energy storage as a key for the efficiency of the energy transition and the current need for a level playing field for energy storage.

Mr Clerens, Secretary General of EASE, closed the workshop and reminded the participants of one of the key points raised: there will not be any investment certainty and further deployment of energy storage technologies in Europe without regulatory clarity on long-term contracts.