Strategic Energy Storage for the European Energy Union

Key points

The EESC:

• considers energy storage necessary to ensure the energy transition is feasible, affordable, socially fair, and territorially balanced. Yet, the EU lacks a related comprehensive strategy;
• calls on the Commission to present:
• common guidelines for integrating storage plans into the national energy and climate plans and ensuring the development of storage, proportional to the development of renewable energy sources;
• common guidelines on managing access to the grid and minimising grid expansion requirements and on addressing the market risk problem for grid-scale storage investments;
• a strategy for producing and importing critical materials without creating dependencies on any single one and for developing and scaling up the domestic production of battery storage;
• guidelines or legislation for battery storage system maintenance, life extension, reuse and recycling;
• guidelines for integrating storage into policies for decentralised solutions, energy communities and vulnerable consumers;
• a plan to interconnect storage with the digitalisation and cybersecurity of energy infrastructure, including resilience against cyberattacks and hybrid threats;
• considers that market-based investment alone will not deliver the necessary scale, timing and type of storage. This makes public strategic planning, complementary public funding, European Investment Bank support, regulated markets, public ownership, regulated asset models, public-community partnerships, regulatory frameworks and long-term investment models essential;
• stresses that energy storage infrastructure forms part of services of general interest and should be treated accordingly, including through planning and funding instruments and, where appropriate, public ownership or control;
• calls for EU storage policies to support quality job creation, upskilling, technical education and social dialogue. The EU needs to link technological progress to high labour and social standards.