November's Energy Storage News & Views
As we approach year's end and the holidays season, it's a period of both reflection and planning for everyone.
2025 has been a rather turbulent year for the sector, with sweeping policy reforms, global trade wars, and an investment squeeze. For many, it's been a year of consolidation, or in some cases survival. However, in BESS it has driven an even deeper focus on extracting maximum ROI from every project and a more considered approach throughout the project lifecycle - every decision is now scrutinised with a significant importance placed on clear data. What has encouraged me is the collaboration I'm seeing between developers, asset owners, optimisers and O&M / Asset Managers.
From a talent perspective, it' safe to say we're experiencing a "soft" market at the moment. Here's my advice to business leaders thinking this is an opportunistic time for a quick win hire... be careful!
Events
Recently Hyperion co-hosted the Climate Coffee event - a breakfast networking event at our offices in London. A real success with 60+ people in attendance - we look forward to hosting another in the future!
Market News
Global Deployments To Date 39% Up
Cumulative BESS deployments in the first ten months of the year have now reached 156GWh, up 39% year-on-year, according to recent research by Rho Motion mainly dominated by China (no shock there!)
Europe Close To Reaching Key Deployment Milestone
Europe is now on the verge of hitting a huge deployment milestone this month - it is expected the region will reach 100GW of cumulative energy storage deployments, according to new analysis from LCP Delta and Energy Storage Europe Association.
It's interesting to take a look at the technology breakdown too - over 50% of total deployment is Pumped Hydro with the rest mainly made up of Electrochemical Storage (Batteries, Flow Batteries etc). Interesting, behind-the-meter deployments outweigh front-of-the-meter deployments so far, but from now to 2030 utility-scale BESS is set to soar. The BtM numbers are mainly down to huge residential growth over recent years, but and commercial and industrial (C&I) is gathering pace with installations expected to go beyond 1GW by 2030.
Toyota opens US battery plant, confirms $10 billion investment plan
Toyota has confirmed plans to invest $10 billion over five years in U.S. manufacturing with a firm commitment to Battery manufacturing, as it begun production at its $13.9 billion North Carolina battery plant. This site will be able to produce 30 GWh annually at full capacity and house 14 battery production lines for plug-in hybrids and full EVs. It will eventually employ 5,000 workers.
UAE's World-Record Solar-Plus-Storage Project
Masdar has broken ground on a monumental solar PV and BESS project in Abu Dhabi, which is claimed to be the largest and most technologically advanced of its kind globally. The $5.9 billion facility combines a massive 5.2 GW solar farm with a 19 GWh BESS and is set to become operational in 2027.
This underlines the commitment of the UAE to the clean energy transition and the scale of some of the Middle Eastern projects is mind blowing!
ERCOT BESS Moves
We saw some key BESS project moves in the Texan ERCOT market recently, led by Energy Vault and Jupiter Power. Energy Vault acquired the 150MW/300MWh SOSA Energy Centre BESS for development under its Asset Vault platform, with commercial operation expected in Q1 2027. Separately, Jupiter Power finalised a large-scale, long-term agreement with utility Austin Energy to provide up to 100MW of electricity from a BESS facility.
Ireland Opens BESS To Wholesale Market
🇮🇪 Ireland has opened its wholesale electricity market to BESS under a new Scheduling and Dispatch Programme, allowing them to fully participate in trading, charging, and discharging based on real-time market signals.
This major reform, led by EirGrid and SONI, is critical for meeting renewable energy targets, enhancing grid flexibility, and is expected to unlock new revenue streams for battery owners, providing a significant boost to energy storage investment in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
French Grid Reform
TURPE 7, 🇫🇷 France's latest grid tariff reform, will introduce dynamic, locational pricing for BESS starting in August 2026. This new "injection-withdrawal" tariff component, approved by the energy regulator CRE, replaces uniform fees with variable rewards linked to grid needs. The goal is to incentivize battery operators to charge and discharge strategically in specific "injection" and "withdrawal" zones to reduce local grid peaks, improving system flexibility and enabling greater renewable energy integration.
A key country to watch for BESS investments and trading and optimisation focus in late 2026 and beyond!
🇪🇸 Spain's Significant Investment In Energy Storage
Our last edition featured Spain's commitment to investing in Energy Storage and further details have emerged. The country will allocate nearly €840 million in EU-backed grants to fund 143 selected projects, aiming to add approximately 9 GWh of storage capacity.
The funding, which was increased by 20% due to high demand, supports various technologies including stand-alone batteries, hybrid renewable projects, and thermal storage, with a focus on hybridisation with existing renewables. These combined efforts are critical components of Spain's strategy to meet its target of 22.5 GW of installed energy storage by 2030 and to integrate its rapidly growing renewable energy fleet.
A Key Reference Project for Thermal Energy Storage
Those of you who have followed the newsletter for some time will know of my strong belief in long duration energy storage (LDES) technologies to complement BESS. One such LDES technology stack is Thermal Energy Storage (TES) and it's great to see this flagship project planned.
Rondo Energy will partner with Siemens and Eneco to deploy a 100 MWh TES system, at a Heineken brewery in Seville, Spain, making it the largest project of it's kind in Europe. By replacing the facility's existing gas boilers with a specialised hot air blow and refractory bricks, the TES system is expected to cut the brewery's CO2 emissions by 7,000 tonnes annually, aligning with Heineken's goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040.
Recruitment News
Congratulations... One of the best parts of a career in executive search is seeing the impact that your placements can make. I was delighted to see that Fergal Harrington-Beatty who we recruited for E-magy has recently been promoted to Chief Commercial Officer just 2 years after joining as Senior BD Manager. Congratulations Fergal!
It's been a great month of progress on some of our key searches as well as securing several new partnerships with existing and new clients in the space. See below:
Head of Manufacturing (Belgium) - an exciting nex-gen battery innovator in Europe. This role will help drive the company's transition from lab and early manual prototypes to pilot and semi-automated production in coming years.
Business Developer + Technical PM (Germany) - BESS client focused on expanding behind-the-meter storage and energy trading opportunities for C&I customers.
- The BD will join the existing commercial team and be focused on capturing significant behind-the-meter pipeline opportunities across Germany and wider DACH.
- The Technical PM will be focused on overseeing end-to-end delivery of customer projects as well as supporting the commercial function with technical support during customer engagements.
Business Development Lead (Netherlands) + Supply Chain Lead (France) - an exciting long-duration energy storage company, now backed by a strategic industrial investor, and focusing on growth in the maritime, ports and logistics segment.
- The BD Lead role will focus on developing their commercial footprint in the Netherlands (a key region) secure early pilot and commercial projects with leading tank storage operators in the region.
- The SC Lead will be a dual role combining supply chain management and financial coordination. You will be responsible for structuring, optimizing, and managing the company’s operational flows — from procurement to delivery — while overseeing the relationship with our external accounting and financial partners.
Deals
Here is a selection of latest deals in the sector!
Statera Energy (UK) - £235 million (Debt) - For its 680MW/1,360MWh Carrington BESS project in Manchester, UK.
European Energy (Latvia) - €37.9 million - for the renewable energy project developer's development of a hybrid solar and energy storage project in Latvia. The solar project is also co-owned by European Energy and Sampension.
FP Investment Partners (Germany) - €500 million battery storage fund - The fund manager has achieved first closing for its European battery storage fund, which will target to raise €500 million to invest in Storage projects across Europe with core target markets of Germany, Scandinavia, Italy and the Netherlands.
Drax Group (UK) - £157.2 million - to acquire 3 BESS projects from Apatura, to complement their already impressive existing Flexible Generation (pumped storage, hydro and gas turbines). The combined FlexGen portfolio will reach 1.8GW of storage and flexible generation across nine UK sites.
Exowatt (USA) - $50 million (Series A extension) - to expand the LDES company's US manufacturing and deployments of their P3 ESS - aimed at meeting the rising power demands of AI data centers and other energy-intensive facilities.
Nanoramic (USA) - $54 million (Series 1 equity) - to further scale the commercialisation of the advanced battery scaleup as they support GWh-scale demand, with commercial shipments scaling up and shifting to global manufacturing sites in 2026.
Enlight Renewable Energy-Clenera (Israel/USA) - $1.44 billion (Debt Financing) - to finance the renewables IPP-developer's Snowflake A project located in Arizona which will combine 600 MW of solar with 1,900 MWh of energy storage.
I wanted to end this edition with some of my personal Must Watch / Must Listen Recommendations
1. Modo Energy Transmission Podcast
i) Building Britain's biggest BESS with host Ed Porter and guest Lisa Mackay of Fidra Energy
ii) Unlocking investment for flexible assets with host Joseph Bush and guests Roberto Castiglioni and Helena Anderson, co-founders of Ikigai Capital
2. 🎙Redefining Energy Podcast with co-hosts Laurent Segalen Gerard Reid
Battery Boom or Policy Bust? The Big EV Divergence with guest Iola Hughes of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence / Rho Motion
3. Energy Unplugged podcast by Aurora Energy Research
i) Structuring The Future: How FPAs Are Powering Europe's Battery Revolution with Martin Daronnat of ENGIE, hosted by Dr. Casimir Lorenz
ii) Powering The Grid: The Growing Role of Large-Scale Battery Storage with Tom Palmer of Zenobē Network Infrastructure, hosted by Malavika Gode
If you enjoyed this edition of the Energy Storage News and Views, please share with your network and don't forget to Subscribe on LinkedIn if you haven't already. There will be a new edition coming soon!
See you next time!
David