Interesting to read of the drop in revenues for UK BESS in 2023. For several years now, the UK has been leading the way in European BESS projects with an influx of well-financed developers and IPPs driving the operational BESS pipeline to 3.5GW in 2023 with 85GW in total project pipeline (in construction, shovel-ready, and planning).

The UK has great access to renewable energy and has operated sophisticated market mechanisms for some time, meaning the ROI for BESS projects has been extremely attractive. In some ways, the rest of Europe were playing catch up. However, these patterns are shifting with numerous countries entering the mix as wholesale market changes enable a wider potential for ancillary services and increases in trading revenues.

There was recent news from Gore Street who found significantly higher revenue returns in Ireland compared to the UK, and emerging interest in wider Europe and USA. If you look at Germany, there's already significant growth in BESS projects (particularly tied to their rapid Solar deployments) with BESS capacities expected to reach 15 GW / 57 GWh by 2030! Market reform and regulatory change around planning approval and transmission connectivity are paving the way for huge investments. We've then seen fertile activity in emerging countries in the CEE region (Poland and Hungary to note), Greece, and now Benelux. 

This international expansion is not only exciting for developers and operators, but also those emerging companies offering unique energy services like asset optimisation, flexibility services, and energy trading - many of which we partner with here at Hyperion!

With UK BESS revenues down last year, and energy markets maturing across the continent (not to mention the dangling carrots in USA and Australia), it will be interesting to see how BESS developers and operators act over the next 12-18 months!

Hyperion help companies along the BESS value chain to hire top senior and executive talent. We will be attending the ESS Summit in London next month. I'm excited to hear insights on future future predictions for the Energy Storage market at the event and discuss how these market changes will impact the hiring pipelines of companies over the coming years. 

If you're growing your BESS team and need expert support or if you're at ESS London, get in touch at david.beeston@hyperionsearch.com