Europe adds 36 GWh of battery storage in 2025

In Ukraine, the useful moment for a home battery is not a lower electricity bill. It is the moment the lights stay on. Vladyslav Sokolovskyi, chairman of the Solar Energy Association of Ukraine, says households buy batteries for that reason as the country’s market enters Europe’s top five, reaching 2.9 GWh of installations in 2025.

Across Europe, the battery energy storage system market added 36 GWh in 2025. That lifted the operational fleet past 100 GWh for the first time, while annual installations grew 48% year on year. Utility-scale projects — large battery systems connected to the power system — increasingly drove the expansion.

Germany kept the lead with 6.6 GWh of new systems, although its annual growth was just 2%. The United Kingdom added 5.2 GWh, a 64% rise, and Italy installed 5 GWh. Ukraine’s roughly fivefold increase brought it into the top five, while Bulgaria added 2.7 GWh and took fifth place. Together, the five leading markets accounted for 62% of European installations, down from almost 80% in 2024.

So what changes in practice? Batteries are becoming a way to make electricity available when the grid or local supply cannot be relied on, especially in Ukraine, while elsewhere European households commonly use them to optimize bills and store rooftop solar power. The technology is already operating at continental scale, but the market’s future size remains a range: SolarPower Europe expects new additions of 99-179 GWh by 2030, with the total fleet reaching 437-735 GWh under different scenarios.

The figures come from SolarPower Europe’s sector report, as reported by pv magazine. They describe installed and operational capacity, not a guarantee that every projected addition will be built. The direction is nevertheless clear in the data: storage is moving from a niche household accessory toward a larger utility asset and, in Ukraine, a resilience tool.