How to make sure big batteries are focused on helping the grid, not lining their owner’s profits

Sales of large-scale battery storage units are booming in Germany but their role in facilitating and advancing the energy transition appears to have been impeded by their increasing use for profit, business daily Handelsblatt reported.

Storage systems help balance out fluctuations caused by weather-dependent wind and solar power generation. Batteries can bridge periods with little renewable electricity feed-in and relieve power grid loads when there is too much energy being generated.

Yet they are also seen as a lucrative business model that allow owners to profit greatly by buying and storing energy on days when renewable energy generation is high and prices are low and selling it when prices rise due to shortages of solar and wind power.

“Battery storage systems generally act in a way that serves the market, not the grid,” said Paulina Asbeck, battery manager at Vattenfall. She argued that battery storage systems that are based on electricity market prices do not necessarily relieve the load on power grids.

Storage operators often end up exacerbating electricity shortages in some areas of Germany when they take advantage of low market prices caused by high renewable power generation in other parts of the country, leading to grid imbalances.

In an effort to improve the effectiveness of storage systems on grids, grid operator Amprion has launched a tender to find partners to build and operate five large electricity storage systems on its behalf.

Unlike previous storage systems, these new large-scale batteries would be used to directly relieve the load on electricity grids at the right moment and still be profitable. Amprion aims to determine whether such a project is actually economically viable, Handelsblatt reported.

Current large-scale storage capacity in Germany reached an estimated 2.6 gigawatt hours (GWh) in 2024 and is expected to more than double this year. The surging interest in large-scale battery storage is also causing difficulties for grid operators as they face ever more connection requests.

Clean Energy Wire. Reproduced with permission.