New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
Seasons in the sun: how solar power is changing Europe’s electricity markets
23/7/2025
10 min read
Feature
The flare of interest among northern Europeans in solar power over the last few years is sparking great demand for grid flexibility services, including battery storage, finds this year’s Observatory of Energy Transitions report from De Gaulle Fleurance. New Energy World Senior Editor Will Dalrymple reports.
Given the significant increase in the number of negative price hours in 2024 and 2025, flexibility has become a key word in electricity markets, according to Beatrice Boisnier, Lawyer at European law firm De Gaulle Fleurance. This means, she explains, that during periods of high production and low consumption, grid operators such as France’s RTE need stakeholders willing to reduce production or increase withdrawals. Conversely, when production is too low compared to consumption needs, they need stakeholders to inject more into the grid, and/or to reduce withdrawals.
Storage is therefore a key solution in this regard, as it allows both the withdrawal of electricity from the grid and the injection of electricity into the grid based on demand. Storage will thus be able to support the grid, for which storage operators will be compensated; this is called participation in system services, she adds.
However, these revenues alone cannot finance storage assets, due to their uncertainty. This is why storage operators supplement their activity with market arbitrage, which consists of buying and selling electricity on the market based on market prices. By storing electricity produced when it is abundant (and cheap) and feeding it back into the grid when demand is high (and therefore at higher prices), storage is becoming a strategic source of revenue.