The Commission adopted in March 2023 a list of recommendations to ensure greater deployment of energy storage, accompanied by a staff working document, providing an outlook of the EU’s current regulatory, market, and financing framework for storage and identifies barriers, opportunities and best practices for its development and deployment.
It can also facilitate the electrification of different economic sectors, notably buildings and transport. The main energy storage method in the EU is by far 'pumped hydro' storage, but battery storage projects are rising. A variety of new technologies to store energy are also rapidly developing and becoming increasingly market-competitive.
Many European energy-storage markets are growing strongly, with 2.8 GW (3.3 GWh) of utility-scale energy storage newly deployed in 2022, giving an estimated total of more than 9 GWh. Looking forward, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects global installed storage capacity to expand by 56% in the next 5 years to reach over 270 GW by 2026.
These studies point to more than 200 GW and 600 GW of energy storage capacity by 2030 and 2050 respectively (from roughly 60 GW in 2022, mainly in the form of pumped hydro storage). The EU needs a strong, sustainable, and resilient industrial value chain for energy-storage technologies.
The database includes three different approaches: Energy storage technologies: All existing energy storage technologies with their characteristics. Front of the meter facilities: List of all energy storage facilities in the EU-28, operational or in project, that are connected to the generation and the transmission grid with their characteristics.
Looking forward, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects global installed storage capacity to expand by 56% in the next 5 years to reach over 270 GW by 2026. Different studies have analysed the likely future paths for the deployment of energy storage in the EU.