Voltpark Blog

Two years ago, build-ready PV project rights cost north of EUR 100/kWp – today we see prices down to EUR 20/kWp. Cannibalization is pushing the solar market value to around 1.3 ct/kWh. But with a green-power storage system, the PV revenue nearly doubles. Is this the contrarian entry point?

The March 2026 ground-mounted PV auction was again clearly oversubscribed, with a bid-to-award ratio of around 2.0 – the volume-weighted award value was 4.94 ct/kWh. Despite tougher competition, prices are rising. Why, and what the last two auctions before the 2027 system change mean for build-ready projects.

866 distribution system operators serve Germany's 52 million grid customers – Spain manages with 333, the Netherlands with 6. This fragmentation turns every grid connection into a standalone project, makes flexible connection agreements vary widely, and even shapes the transaction market. Why the grid area matters as early as site selection.

Solar PV showed the pattern – and battery storage is repeating it: between 2020 and 2025, the 2030 forecasts for installed BESS capacity were revised upward year after year. IEA STEPS alone increased sevenfold, from 130 to 900 GW. Why linear models systematically fail in exponential markets.

The working draft of the EEG 2027 raises the expansion path for ground-mounted PV to 14 GW per year – while fundamentally rebuilding the support scheme: from the one-sided market premium to a two-sided contract for difference (CfD) with a refinancing contribution. What this means for bidding strategies, cut-off dates, and storage planning.

Co-location is the conference topic of 2025/26 – yet almost nothing has been built. Our analysis of Germany's market master data register finds exactly four operational wind-BESS co-location projects across 78 GW of wind, totaling roughly 40 MW / 67 MWh. The narrative is far ahead of the market.

The Federal Network Agency has published the results of the onshore wind auction for February 1, 2026: 439 awards between 5.19 and 5.64 ct/kWh – the lowest volume-weighted award value in eight years. Competition is working, but the margin for calculation is getting tight. Co-located storage is increasingly becoming a prerequisite.

Negative power prices were long considered a summer phenomenon. With growing PV and wind capacity, even spring days now suffice to produce surpluses. 2026 is on a record pace — and the sunny half of the year hasn't even started.

Between 2022 and 2025, renewable energy surplus in the German grid has increased fifteenfold. Residual load analysis reveals: The central bottleneck is shifting from installed capacity to temporal flexibility — precisely the sweet spot for battery storage.

The common rule of thumb is: sell at Ready-to-Build. But rising development costs and scarce grid connection commitments are changing the equation. The optimal time to sell is a strategic portfolio decision.

From April 1, 2026, Germany’s four transmission system operators are changing the procedure for large grid connection requests (>100 MW). Instead of “first come, first served”, it will now be “first ready, first served.”

A response we hear repeatedly in conversations with developers about BESS project valuation. What is often underestimated is that financing assumptions have a significant impact on potential project value.

The stability of the power system is undergoing transformation. With the decline of conventional power plants, rotating mass is increasingly disappearing from the grid. This physical inertia has so far been essential for frequency stability.

Ready-to-Build sounds like a clear milestone — but in practice it’s a spectrum. We show why RTB is understood differently by each investor and what this means for project valuations.

The 2025 regional scenarios from distribution system operators are considered an important reference for expected BESS expansion. We compared them with the MaStR inventory — and identified three patterns.

The AgNes framework determination by the Bundesnetzagentur is taking shape. We assess what the planned grid fee regulations mean for battery storage projects, business cases, and investment decisions.

The Federal Court of Justice ruled on July 15, 2025: construction cost subsidies for battery storage are permissible. We explain the implications for project developers and investors.

More and more battery storage projects are receiving grid connection commitments only for 2027 or later. Why this threatens profitability and what developers should do now.

Many battery storage projects stall because authorities request additional assessments — often just before the building permit. Why this happens and what developers can do.