While official speeches celebrate new records in wind and solar generation, control rooms across Europe are under constant pressure to keep the system from breaking.
This permanent tension, mostly invisible, highly technical, rarely discussed, is where battery energy storage systems, BESS, are quietly entering the scene.

Across Europe, project announcements are multiplying.
Hundreds of megawatts, sometimes more, backed by utilities, investment funds and a new generation of specialised players. Projects often presented as obvious building blocks of the energy transition.

Yet a simple question is rarely asked: why now?

BESS are not emerging in a stable system. They appear in a context we have already explored here, a system that has become structurally desynchronised, where production, consumption and infrastructure no longer evolve at the same pace.
Understanding BESS is not about understanding a technology. It is about understanding a transition phase, and what it reveals about the real state of Europe’s energy system.

A SYSTEM THAT DOES NOT LACK ENERGY, BUT SYNCHRONISATION

Over the past decade, Europe has massively increased renewable electricity generation. But this expansion has progressed much faster than the adaptation of the rest of the system.

The consequences are now tangible:
periods of extreme abundance, with zero or negative prices, followed by sudden stress when generation drops or networks saturate. Hourly volatility is no longer exceptional. It has become structural.

In 2024, European grid operators activated around 60 TWh of corrective actions, redispatch and countertrading, at an estimated cost of 4.3 billion euros.
This figure is not an investment. It is the price of inefficiency: money spent to correct imbalances in real time rather than to build long-term infrastructure.

Energy can be abundant.
But it is increasingly misplaced in time and space.

WHAT BESS ACTUALLY DO

In public debate, BESS are often described as energy storage. This is misleading.

BESS do not create energy. They do not store summer electricity for winter. Their role is more specific, more modest, and yet central: they provide short-term flexibility.

They make it possible to:

• stabilise the grid at the scale of seconds or minutes;
• shift electricity over a few hours;
• relieve local congestion;
• arbitrage between very low and very high prices.

In other words, BESS do not increase the amount of available energy.
They buy time.

They do not solve the structural problem.
They alleviate its symptoms.

As long as the system remains unstable, their economic value exists. If the system eventually rebalances, that value will mechanically compress. BESS live in this in-between zone, neither a miracle solution nor a temporary gadget.

WHY NOW? THE NETWORK WALL

If BESS projects are multiplying today, it is not because batteries are a new invention. It is because the grid has become the dominant constraint.

Germany offers a striking illustration. By the end of 2025, grid connection requests for BESS projects exceeded 720 GW, while less than 80 GW had actually been approved.
This imbalance says something very simple: scarcity is no longer technological. It lies in the connection point.

Across Europe, queues are growing, timelines are stretching, and prioritisation rules are becoming increasingly political. The grid, long treated as a passive support, has once again become a strategic asset.

BESS emerge precisely where the system is most constrained.
They are not the cause of the problem. They are its consequence.

ENERGY-CONNECTED LAND: THE BATTLE FOR THE PLUG

In this context, land is no longer a secondary issue. Precision matters. What is scarce is not land in general, but energy-connected land.

A relevant BESS site must combine:

• immediate proximity to a medium- or high-voltage substation;
• genuinely available grid capacity;
• regulatory and safety compatibility;
• minimum local acceptability.

Such sites are rare, and they are now at the centre of a silent competition.

In some German regions, substations have received dozens of connection requests for very limited available capacity. In France, energy projects sometimes wait three to five years for a definitive grid connection answer.

On top of this tension comes an increasingly influential actor: data centres. Their electricity consumption in Europe could rise from around 96 TWh in 2024 to 168 TWh by 2030.
They target the same grid-ready locations. But between a battery that stabilises the European grid quietly and a data centre promising visible jobs, local tax revenue and a global cloud brand on its facade, territorial choices rarely favour energy infrastructure.

This is where the transition actually plays out, parcel by parcel, substation by substation, council by council.

BESS AND HYDROGEN: SAME CONSTRAINTS, DIFFERENT HORIZONS

BESS are often opposed to hydrogen, as if they were competing solutions. This framing is misleading.

Their functions differ fundamentally:

• BESS operate on an hourly scale;
• hydrogen targets the decarbonisation of heavy industrial processes and, potentially, very long-term storage.

They do, however, share one critical constraint: access to grids, land and permits.

A large electrolyser mobilises hundreds of megawatts. It directly competes with other uses for scarce connection capacity. This is one of the reasons why a significant share of announced hydrogen projects never reach final investment decision.

Through contrast, BESS expose a physical reality that is often glossed over: without infrastructure, permits and grid access, an energy project simply does not exist.

A LONG-TERM ASSET, A TEMPORARY FINANCIAL WINDOW

BESS are not a passing trend. In a power system dominated by intermittent sources, short-term flexibility has become structural.

Their financial window of opportunity, however, is not permanent. As capacities deploy, markets can saturate, revenues compress, and purely opportunistic business models become riskier.

BESS will remain essential to absorb the transition.
But their role, integration and remuneration will evolve with:

• grid investment;
• market design;
• overall system maturity.

THE REAL HUMAN SHIFT BEHIND BESS

BESS are neither a fashion nor a miracle solution.
They are a revelation.

They reveal that a system can produce massive amounts of electricity while lacking flexibility, grid capacity and energy-connected land. They reveal that the energy transition is not primarily a production problem, but a coordination problem.

If BESS buy time, one question remains: what will we do with that time?
Will we keep chasing ever more sophisticated technological flexibility, or finally align our uses with the physical reality of our production?

This is where the real Human Shift begins.