Europe's energy problem isn't green power — it's storage
Solar and wind produce lots of energy — but not always at the right time. More battery storage could help Europe to stabilize prices and
Solar and wind produce lots of energy — but not always at the right time. More battery storage could help Europe to stabilize prices and replace polluting fossil fuel energy, but roadblocks remain. During the day, when the wind blows and the sun is shining, the amount of electricity available in Germany and some other European countries is often more than is needed. But insufficient battery storage has made it impossible to store that energy for later use. Once the sun goes down, it's often left to natural gas power plants to pick up the slack. That has to change if Germany wants to become climate neutral by 2045. Large-scale storage facilities for green power are essential to keeping electricity prices stable and making the transition to 100% renewable energy. The European Union, which has set its own climate-neutral goal for 2050, currently generates around half of its electricity with renewable energy. Across Europe, existing large-scale storage facilities add up to a capacity of about 14 GW, according to data from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. In recent years, that expansion has accelerated dramatically: 84 GW of additional large-scalestorage capacity, representing a sixfold increase, is currently in the planning or construction phases and expected to go online in the next few years. That mirrors a global trend, according to research group Bloomberg New Energy Finance. A recent analysis showed that the strongest growth in large-scale storage facilities is expected in Asia, especially in China and India. In Europe, both Germany and Italy, countries with significant renewable energy output, are also major markets for new storage. Part of that rapid growth is down to sinking costs. Over the last few years, the price for lithium-ion batteries has dropped by about 20% every year.
By 2030, according to an EU forecast, the cost for batteries is expected to fall by half, compared to 2022 prices. When smaller, private storage systems and large-scale facilities are put together, the capacity in the EU has increased tenfold since 2022. But to meet the bloc's climate goals, that figure would have to increase by another factor of 10, to around 750 GW — a target that's still some way off. Investment in batteries can keep power prices stable The price of renewable energy is especially low during the day, at times even dipping below zero, often due to the surplus of power generated by wind and solar. As a result, some renewable plants are taken offline for a few hours to compensate, denting profits for energy producers. When gas and coal power plants go online in the evenings to make up the energy shortfall, that pushes prices back up, explained Dirk Uwe Sauer, a professor and storage systems expert at Germany's RWTH Aachen University. "If we take a look at these prices, for example, from last year, then we see that at around midday the average price of electricity wasn't much more than €0.03 ($0.04)," he told DW. "In the early evening, it was closer to €0.18." This energy storage facility in Bollingstedt, northern Germany, went online in June 2025 supplying 170,000 homes for two hours in the morning and evening with power Image: Axel Heimken/AFP/Getty Images This considerable difference has made investing in battery storage tech attractive from an economic standpoint — especially at a time when the cost of natural gas has jumped due to the wars in Ukraine and Iran. Sauer pointed out that each additional storage unit can help to moderate price spikes, benefiting both the renewables industry and private consumers.
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