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This year¡¯s Energy Storage Summit takes place from 24-25 February in London. Image: Solar Media.

Increased renewable energy penetration in Europe¡¯s leading clean energy markets will lead to more fluctuations in power prices, creating new opportunities for battery energy storage system (BESS) developers and co-located solar-plus-storage projects.

This was the sentiment expressed by panellists speaking on day one of Solar Media¡¯s Energy Storage Summit 2026, held this week in London, who gave a number of examples of fluctuations in European power prices as an example of the kind of opportunities for the BESS sector to provide flexibility in the continent¡¯s energy mix.

¡°Volatility exists where we have the transition to renewables, or we have an amount of renewable penetration that¡¯s quite high,¡± said Dan Moore, head of BESS asset management at Root Power. ¡°Those markets are the most interesting ones - they¡¯re certainly the most volatile ones.¡±

¡°Germany is the market, in Europe, that has the most sustained merchant opportunity, driven by the depth of its intra-day market [and] the depth of its trading opportunities,¡± said Alexa Strobel, head of strategy and analysis at Field Energy, starting a discussion on the power price environment that spanned several individual European countries.

Strobel went on to explain that high solar generation - she said that Germany added 17GW of new solar capacity in 2025, compared to ¡±like 2GW of operational batteries¡± at present - drove spot prices to lows of -€450/MWh in May last year, and this trend is unlikely to stop as more renewable energy capacity is deployed across the continent.

¡°In Spain, we have a lot of volatility driven by PV, for sure, reaching quite a lot of negative hours a day, which is quite good when it comes to the location of BESS,¡± said Mikel Pino, head of energy storage Europe at Exus Renewables. ¡°We have a lot of power purchase agreements (PPAs) with no settlement at zero or negative prices, so it¡¯s painful!¡±

By JP Casey