Insights

Storage is the new power plant

Europe is building battery storage at record pace. Why large-scale batteries are becoming the key technology of the energy transition, and what they mean for data centres.

Market, 19 October 2026, 5 minute read

A market at record pace

In 2025, Europe connected 36 gigawatt hours of new battery storage, 48 per cent more than the year before. It was the twelfth consecutive year of growth, and for the first time large-scale storage made up more than half of new installations. Europe’s fleet has now passed 100 gigawatt hours. The largest markets were Germany, the UK and Italy.

SolarPower Europe expects more than 50 gigawatt hours of new storage in 2026 and around 138 gigawatt hours a year by 2030, almost four times today’s level. The EU fleet would then reach around 470 gigawatt hours by the end of the decade, more than six times today. Large-scale storage is set to account for three quarters of installed capacity.

Too much power, at the wrong time

The more sun and wind there is on the grid, the more often there is too much power, especially at midday. In 2025, wholesale prices in Germany were below zero for 573 hours, up from 457 hours the year before. In the evening, when the sun sets, power becomes scarce and expensive.

Large-scale batteries close this gap. They charge when power is abundant and discharge when it is needed. They also stabilise the grid within seconds and are paid for it by grid operators. That lets them earn in several markets at once.

Cheaper than ever

The technology has become affordable fast. According to BloombergNEF, prices for stationary battery storage fell by 45 per cent in 2025 alone, to an average of 70 US dollars per kilowatt hour. Falling costs and wider price swings make every new battery more profitable.

The bottleneck is the grid connection

Demand for connections is enormous. According to the German government, transmission system operators in Germany hold grid-connection requests for battery storage in the hundreds of gigawatts. Far from all of these projects will be built. A site with a secured connection is therefore a real advantage.

The key for data centres

For data centres, storage is doubly valuable. It turns variable solar and wind power into supply around the clock. And it absorbs the sharp load swings that come with training large AI models, which conventional generation can hardly balance that quickly. A data centre drawing green power from a park and a battery is better protected than one that depends on the grid alone.

What this means for Trustvolt

Trustvolt builds large-scale batteries from 5 megawatts at its own solar and wind parks and near data centres. They earn from power trading, grid services and fixed supply contracts, in a market set to almost quadruple by 2030.