EASE has responded to the European Commission's Public Consultation on 'Renewable Energy Projects - Permit-Granting Processes & Power Purchase Agreements . This initiative aims to facilitate renewable energy production projects. It will focus on the key barriers to implementing renewable energy projects and outline good practices addressing the identified barriers and good practices to facilitate power-purchase agreements, including across borders.
June 2022 / Reports and Studies
Energy Storage Targets 2030 and 2050
EASE has published an extensive review study for estimating Energy Storage Targets for 2030 and 2050which will drive thenecessary boost in storage deployment urgently needed today. Current market trajectories for storage deployment are significantly underestimating the system needs for energy storage. If we continue at historic deployment rates Europe will not be able to integrate the rapidly growing renewables and will fall short of its 2030 and 2050 climate targets.
In this report we highlight a number of areas in which storage needs are underestimated and find that many studies do not address all key energy storage technologies and durations, often undervaluing low emission technologies and energy shifting resources and overvaluing the use of fossil fuel plants especially in the 2030-time horizon. Furthermore, storage needs must be aligned with existing climate targets today especially as storage is a key enabler for the accelerated renewable buildout foreseen in Europe.
We account for these points in our target estimates for 2030 and 2050 and based on our analysis storage deployment needs to ramp-up to at least 14 GW/year in order to meet a target of approx. 200 GW by 2030.By 2050 at least 600 GW storage will be needed in the energy system, with over two-thirds of this being provided by energy shifting technologies (power-to-X-to-power). Our report is an important source of information for informing key assumptions for storage in future energy system planning.
Energy storage needs to become a political priority alongside renewables, without a parallel storage strategy and scaling up of market-ready energy storage technologies, the EU will be unable to achieve a net-zero power system, risking continued exposure to volatile fossil energy markets. We emphasisethese key priorities for storage:
A clear political commitment from the European Commission on an energy storage strategy including energy storage targets replicating in scope and ambition the Hydrogen strategy.
Promote the uptake of energy storage technologies, providing clear signals to investors and the energy storage industry to drive the necessary scale-up of storage solutions and a commitment to remove still existing barriers to their deployment and operation.
Mainstream energy storage in the European Commission’s implementation of the REPowerEU action plan and in the ongoing review of the Electricity Market Design.
EASE has responded to the European Commission's Public Consultation on 'Renewable Energy Projects - Permit-Granting Processes & Power Purchase Agreements . This initiative aims to facilitate renewable energy production projects. It will focus on the key barriers to implementing renewable energy projects and outline good practices addressing the identified barriers and good practices to facilitate power-purchase agreements, including across borders.
EASE responds to the European Commission’s Public Consultation on the European Grids Package, calling for clearer guidance and obligations on flexibility assessments in planning processes. This includes common methodologies, improved DSO-TSO coordination, and enhanced grid connection procedures. Storage should be considered a standard resource for grid services and reflected accordingly in system planning, cost-benefit analyses, and network development scenarios.
The European Commission has recently launched a stakeholder consultation on its upcoming guidance regarding grid connections in situations where capacity constraints exist. In response, EASE urged reforms to tackle stalled “ghost” projects blocking viable energy storage. Key recommendations include a “first-ready, first-served” model, transparent grid data, and more flexible rules to accelerate the clean energy transition.
On 27 May 2025, over 200 participants attended the webinar on the "EASE Guidelines on Safety Best Practices for Battery Energy Storage Systems". The Guidelines are designed to support the safe deployment of outdoor, utility-scale lithium-ion (Li-ion) BESS across Europe.
Energy storage is a key enabler of the European Union’s decarbonisation and energy security objectives, yet current grid fee structures often act as barriers to its deployment. This position paper outlines critical challenges related to network tariffs and charges that create market distortions and discourage much-needed investments in flexibility.
