The European Commission’s new AccelerateEU package backs a 200 GW battery-storage target for 2030, but SolarPower Europe says the plan still lacks the dedicated funding mechanism needed to turn that ambition into deployment.
SolarPower Europe says the bloc would still reach only about 160 GW by 2030 under its medium scenario, leaving it short of the target even after a sixfold increase from 77 GWh installed at the end of 2024.
“No, we need a separate instrument, financed by ETS revenues that are part of the ETS revision in July,” said Dries Acke, deputy CEO at SolarPower Europe, when asked whether AccelerateEU closes the financing gap the association has identified.
SPE is calling for part of the European Commission's proposed €30 billion ($35.1 billion) ETS Investment Booster – a fund financed by approximately 400 million EU ETS allowances – to be directed to an EU-wide auction for battery storage and non-fossil flexibility.
The European Commission communication, published this week, sets a target of expanding EU storage capacity from 55 GW today to 200 GW by 2030, describing batteries as playing “an important role” in that growth.
It proposes a Clean Energy Investment Summit targeting storage among other technologies, and general European Investment Bank support. It contains no dedicated procurement mechanism, no auction framework, and no mandatory member state obligation for storage deployment.
The absence of national-level obligation is the structural gap SPE identifies. Flexibility support schemes for non-fossil generation exist in the EU's Electricity Market Design, but member states are permitted rather than required to create them.
SolarPower Europe data shows that only 11 of 27 member states had active utility-scale battery energy storage support schemes in 2025, together totaling almost 70 GWh granted across at least five different funding vehicles – recovery and resilience plans, modernization funds, regional development funds, and national innovation tenders. Sixteen member states had no active scheme.
The largest volumes were granted in Poland, which awarded 14.5 GWh through its Recovery and Resilience Plan, Bulgaria at 13.7 GWh through the Modernisation Fund, and Italy at 10 GWh through its MACSE mechanism. Germany, despite being Europe's largest economy, awarded approximately 1 GWh through innovation tenders.
Across 2024 to 2026, SolarPower Europe’s repeated call for a much larger battery fleet, steady evidence of accelerating EU storage deployment, and the European Commission’s AccelerateEU initiative together point to a shift from simply tracking the storage gap to treating flexibility as a central element of Europe’s energy‑security strategy.
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