ENTSO-E, which speaks for 40 transmission operators across 36 countries, published its response to the European Commission's Electrification Action Plan on 15 September. Its central number is that more than half the transmission projects Europe needs by 2030 are still waiting for a permit.
The Action Plan, adopted in July, sets an indicative electrification target for 2040. The operators' reply is that the target is a function of paperwork rather than ambition, and that flexibility and faster connection queues have to arrive alongside the steel. (ENTSO-E)
Energy Transition
Vattenfall puts a gigawatt-hour of batteries on a decommissioned nuclear site
Vattenfall took a final investment decision on 10 September for a 254 MW, 1,000 MWh battery at Brunsbüttel in Schleswig-Holstein, on the site of a nuclear plant currently being dismantled. It connects to the 50 Hertz 380 kV system and is due to run by the end of 2028.
The location matters as much as the size. Grid connection at a retired power station is already built and consented, which is precisely the scarce resource ENTSO-E was describing.
German transmission operators expect large-scale storage above 80 GW by 2040. Vattenfall's own fleet today is 150 MW operating and 120 MW under construction. (Vattenfall)
Battery revenue becomes something a lender can price
Statkraft and SSE completed what they describe as the first FCA-regulated swap tied to a battery revenue index, referencing Modo Energy's two-hour Great Britain benchmark. SSE trades volatile merchant revenue for a fixed payment and Statkraft takes the spread.
Terms were not disclosed, which limits what anyone can read into the pricing.
The instrument is the news. Storage revenue in Britain now has a hedgeable reference, and that is the precondition for debt rather than equity funding the next wave. (ESS News)
Kosovo draws three bids for its first wind auction
Three bidders filed for Kosovo's first competitive wind tender: France's Akuo Energy, a consortium of Germany's Notus Energy with local Stublla Energy, and a group led by Turkey's Güriş. The auction offers 15-year contracts for difference over 50 to 100 MW, capped at EUR 80.2 per MWh.
A commission now checks the bids before a winner is named, with a second round planned to reach 150 MW in total. Kosovo already runs around 208 MW of wind, so a coal-heavy grid is learning auction mechanics its neighbours spent a decade building. (Balkan Green Energy News)
The power purchase market thinned out in August
Pexapark's Euro Composite index rose 2.2% in August while volumes fell hard, to 14 deals for roughly 335 MW against 24 deals for about 1.1 GW in July. The UK led on price at 4.9%, Germany and the Netherlands at 2.8%, with the Nordics down 1.2%.
Some of that is the August holiday.
The flexibility side did not follow. Storage agreements held steady at 11 deals covering 869 MW and 2.4 GWh, so buyers kept contracting batteries in the month they stopped contracting generation. (pv magazine)
Climate Tech
Econergy pays EUR 134 million to enter French onshore wind
Econergy acquired Escofi, a French developer founded in 1988, for EUR 134.3 million. The platform carries 740 MW across four stages: 128 MW operating, 34 MW under construction, 147 MW in advanced development and 432 MW earlier.
More than 90% of the operating and near-term capacity sits on 20-year contracts for difference.
That is what the price buys. In a market where nobody wants merchant revenue, a contracted book is the asset. (Energy Global)
Romania gets a second plant for recycling solar panels
Greensmalt is building a photovoltaic recycling line at Seini in Maramureș county, funded through the North-West Regional Programme 2021-2027. The line handles a tonne an hour, roughly 45 panels. It recovers 65% glass cullet, 14% plastics, 12% aluminium and 8% silicon.
It is Romania's second such plant, after Sun 3R Green Recycling opened in Brașov county in April 2025. Europe consented its solar fleet two decades before it thought about the end of life, and the capacity going in now is measured in tonnes per hour rather than gigawatts. (Balkan Green Energy News)
Policy & Regulation
Flanders stops paying for power the grid does not want
Flemish energy minister Melissa Depraetere cut the window during which large solar and wind installations keep earning green certificates through negative prices, from six hours to 15 minutes. The government puts the saving at EUR 179 to 189 million a year.
Households see about EUR 6 of that. The larger effect is on developer behaviour, since a 15-minute trigger makes a battery or a curtailment contract cheaper than the certificates forgone. (pv magazine)
Romania finalises the rules for household battery grants
Romania's environment fund AFM settled a RON 400 million scheme, around EUR 79 million, covering up to 75% of a household battery and capped at RON 15,000 per grant. Applicants must already be grid-connected prosumers, with at least 10 kWh of storage and 5,000 cycles of rated life.
Romania counted 332,684 prosumer installations totalling 3,789 MW in April. Paying them to store rather than export is cheaper than reinforcing the low-voltage network now absorbing all of it. (ESS News)
Science
Britain's climate advisers put a number on Heathrow
The Climate Change Committee told the government that UK aviation is on track for 38 million tonnes of CO2 in 2050, most of the country's remaining emissions, with Heathrow expansion adding 2.4 million tonnes on top. It finds no credible policy in place to reverse the trend.
The committee's answer is that the sector pays: airlines fund their own sustainable fuel and their own engineered carbon removal. It estimates that adds roughly GBP 150 to a return flight to Alicante and GBP 400 to New York by 2050, and notes the alternative is the half of the population who do not fly paying instead.
A revised aviation strategy is due in 2027 and a Heathrow decision by 2029. (Carbon Brief)
One to Watch
Whether the fossil exit gets its own Draghi report
CAN Europe and more than 200 organisations, 16 of them industry associations, asked Ursula von der Leyen to commission a high-level independent report on Europe's exit from fossil fuels, modelled on the Draghi competitiveness report. They put the extra EU fossil import bill since the Iran conflict at around EUR 70 billion, against EUR 32.2 billion of gas imports displaced by solar.
Von der Leyen delivers the State of the Union on 16 September. Watch whether energy costs arrive as a cost-of-living line or as a commissioned piece of work with a deadline attached. (Euronews)