IN Brief:
- Next Kraftwerke and ECO STOR have signed a five-year flexibility tolling agreement for Förderstedt.
- The battery will have 300MW of power and more than 700MWh of storage capacity once fully operational.
- The contract combines 80% tolling with 20% merchant exposure across German power markets.
Next Kraftwerke and ECO STOR have signed a five-year flexibility tolling agreement for the Förderstedt battery storage project in Germany, giving one of the country’s largest BESS developments a long-term route-to-market structure.
The project will comprise 300MW of power and more than 700MWh of storage capacity once fully operational. The first of three 100MW storage units is scheduled to enter the day-ahead, intraday, and balancing power markets from November 2026, with the remaining units due to follow in stages.
The commercial model combines a tolling agreement for 80% of the battery capacity with flexible merchant exposure for the remaining 20%. Next Kraftwerke will use the asset across short-term and balancing markets, while the structure gives ECO STOR a clearer financing framework for long-term operation. Shell Energy Europe is also involved in long-term hedging and risk management.
Flexible grid connection arrangements have been agreed with 50Hertz. Operational restrictions, including ramp-rate limits and ancillary service boundaries, will be incorporated into Next Kraftwerke’s optimisation process. That design allows the asset to participate in markets while operating within grid requirements.
The Förderstedt agreement follows a period of regulatory adjustment for German storage. Germany has preserved grid-fee relief for qualifying battery projects commissioned by 4 August 2029, giving late-stage developers clearer cost assumptions before procurement and financing decisions are finalised. The decision, covered in Germany preserves grid-fee exemption for storage, has helped maintain confidence around projects progressing toward construction.
European storage deployment is moving beyond simple merchant revenue assumptions. Early battery projects could rely heavily on high-value ancillary service markets, but those markets become more competitive as capacity grows. Larger assets now need layered strategies across day-ahead spreads, intraday volatility, balancing energy, reserve products, congestion management, and long-term contracted structures.
That complexity is increasing the value of market benchmarks. Nord Pool and Clean Horizon have launched a European storage revenue index covering simulated earnings for one-hour, two-hour, and four-hour BESS assets across multiple bidding zones. The benchmark, detailed in Nord Pool adds benchmark for European BESS revenues, reflects a market where duration, bidding zone, trading strategy, and market design all shape asset performance.
Förderstedt combines those financial and technical requirements in a single project. It is a contracted market asset, a grid-connected flexibility resource, and a large electrical installation requiring control across power conversion systems, transformers, protection equipment, battery management, metering, cybersecurity, and grid-code compliance.
Operational optimisation will have to account for physical battery limits, degradation, connection rules, service commitments, and real-time price signals. The same asset may move between wholesale arbitrage, balancing, and reserve markets, while maintaining availability and avoiding operating patterns that reduce long-term performance.
Germany’s storage market is expanding as renewable penetration, grid congestion, price volatility, and coal exit pressures increase the value of flexibility. The projects now advancing are larger, more structured, and more closely tied to grid operation than the first wave of merchant batteries. Förderstedt’s tolling model sets out one route for delivering that next phase: contracted capacity, managed merchant upside, and optimisation built around the constraints of a live power system.
