Statkraft Signs EU Record 1.6 GWh Battery Storage Tolling Deal

Statkraft and Greenvolt Power signed a 10-year battery storage tolling agreement today covering 400 MW and 1.6 GWh of battery capacity across two Polish projects, in what both companies describe as the largest publicly disclosed deal of its kind in the European Union.

The announcement lands at a moment when European energy markets are hunting for commercial structures that can make utility-scale battery storage bankable. This deal answers part of that question directly. It sits on top of an already-closed €218 million UniCredit financing package, which means the more significant story is the combined stack: the infrastructure is funded, and the commercial offtake is now locked in for a decade.

Here is how the deal was structured, what the financing behind it looks like, and what it tells you about where European storage markets are heading.

A deal that rewrites the European BESS benchmark

The agreement, announced on 29 September 2026, covers two utility-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in north-eastern Poland with a combined rating of 400 MW / 1.6 GWh. A BESS is a grid-connected battery installation that stores electricity and releases it back to the market when needed, providing flexibility to a power system.

Beneath the headline number sit two named assets, each identical in scale. The Ełk project, in Nowa Wieś Ełcka, is rated at 200 MW / 800 MWh. The Turośń Kościelna project carries the same 200 MW / 800 MWh rating. Both are configured as four-hour systems, meaning each can discharge at full power for four hours before depleting.

Battery hardware for both installations was supplied by BYD Energy Storage. Photographic evidence points to the BYD MC-Cube T product variant, though this specific model was not formally confirmed in either company’s announcement.

According to reporting from SolarQuarter and WNP dated 29 September 2026, this is the largest publicly communicated BESS tolling transaction in the EU to date. It also marks Statkraft’s first large-scale BESS contract in the Polish market.

European battery storage growth is forecast to jump 78% in 2026, one of the steepest expansions any energy technology has recorded this decade, and the structural demand for tolling and offtake frameworks like this one is a direct consequence of that pace.

The 1.6 GWh combined scale matters as more than a superlative. It establishes a publicly visible reference point for what a BESS tolling deal can look like in Europe, a benchmark that developers and investors did not have before today.

Kornel Koronowski, Head of Origination Poland, Statkraft Characterised the agreement as the largest BESS tolling transaction completed in Poland to date, and described the company’s role in Poland’s energy transition as an active and continuing commitment.

How the tolling structure divides rights, risk, and revenue

Strip away the record-setting figures and what remains is a deliberate split of responsibilities between two parties with different strengths. That split is the point.

Under a tolling agreement, the asset owner keeps the battery and the trader gets the keys to operate it. Statkraft holds operational control over when the batteries charge and discharge, optimising dispatch across day-ahead, intraday, balancing, and ancillary-services markets. Greenvolt Power retains ownership and handles construction, operation, and maintenance.

The revenue division follows the same logic. Statkraft captures the market revenues its trading desk can extract from price volatility, arbitrage, and flexibility services. Greenvolt receives contracted tolling income, layered on top of revenues it has already secured through Poland’s Capacity Market.

That foundation layer is substantial. Turośń Kościelna operates under a 17-year Capacity Market contract with a 170 MW obligation, with delivery commencing in 2028.

Why tolling beats merchant exposure or a conventional PPA

For a battery asset, tolling solves a problem that neither pure merchant exposure nor a traditional power purchase agreement (PPA) handles well. Batteries earn value from several revenue streams at once, and forecasting those streams a decade out is difficult, which makes a fixed-price PPA awkward to structure.

Tolling sidesteps that difficulty. It centralises optimisation in a specialist trader, spares the developer from building an in-house trading operation, and converts complex merchant exposure into contracted cash flows that banks can underwrite.

The risk allocation breaks down cleanly:

• Market risk (wholesale price and balancing volatility): transferred largely to Statkraft.
• Operational and technical risk (battery performance, degradation, maintenance): remains with Greenvolt.
• Counterparty credit risk: shared across both parties over the full term.

“The agreement enables advanced market optimisation of the assets across multiple power markets,” said Łukasz Zagórski, Business Origination and Market Regulation Director at Greenvolt Power, who added that choosing the right commercial framework becomes increasingly important as projects move from development into operation.

No numerical tolling fee or total contract value has been publicly disclosed. For a developer watching this, the takeaway is structural: stacking capacity market income with a long-term tolling contract turns a battery into a legible, financeable asset rather than a merchant gamble.

The €218 million financing package that made it possible

The tolling deal grabs the headlines, but the money came first, and the order matters. Greenvolt Group secured a €218 million financing package from UniCredit, announced and closed on 27 August 2026, roughly one month before the tolling agreement was signed.

The facility splits into two components:

• €153 million in bridge facilities
• €65 million in guarantee facilities
• €218 million total, closed 27 August 2026

Critically, the financing was arranged independently of the tolling agreement. The tolling contract was not a prerequisite for funding construction and equipment. The bank committed the capital, and the commercial offtake structure was finalised afterwards.

UniCredit described the Ełk and Turośń Kościelna projects as “among the largest BESS projects in the country” and framed the financing as a further step in delivering Greenvolt’s battery storage portfolio.

That sequencing tells you something important about the current state of the market. A mainstream European bank was willing to underwrite €218 million against these assets before every revenue contract was signed. The bankability case for Polish utility-scale BESS, in other words, no longer hinges on locking down every offtake agreement first.

For investors and developers, the package is a live reference point for institutional lender appetite toward storage infrastructure in Central and Eastern Europe. No interest rate, tenor, covenant package, or security structure has been publicly disclosed, so the terms behind that appetite remain private for now.

Institutional BESS financing is extending well beyond Europe’s home market, with NORD/LB committing USD 60 million to a Colorado battery project in the same month as UniCredit’s Polish facility closed, a pattern that signals broad appetite from European lenders for storage infrastructure debt across geographies.

What the deal reveals about Statkraft’s Polish playbook

Zoom out from this single transaction and a pattern comes into focus. Statkraft has been collecting landmark firsts in Poland, and this is the latest.

The company has previously executed what was reported as Poland’s largest corporate PPA and the country’s first subsidy-free utility-scale solar PPA. The BESS tolling agreement is a third landmark, adding storage offtake to a track record already built on renewable power contracts.

Statkraft’s three Polish firsts now read:

• Largest corporate power purchase agreement in Poland
• First subsidy-free utility-scale solar PPA in Poland
• Largest BESS tolling deal in the EU to date

The strategic logic is consistent across all three. Statkraft applies its trading expertise to extract value from energy assets while leaving construction, ownership, and maintenance risk with the developer. It is a model built for scaling a presence in markets where the energy transition is accelerating fast.

Poland is exactly that kind of market. Its coal-heavy generation mix, combined with rapid growth in solar and wind, is creating sharp demand for flexibility resources such as four-hour BESS to manage balancing and grid congestion. Capacity market rules are also evolving to recognise storage technologies, which is what allowed Greenvolt to secure capacity income before layering the tolling contract on top.

Capacity market rules for battery storage are evolving across Europe, and Spain’s September 2026 ministerial order placing generation, storage, and demand-side resources inside a single remuneration framework illustrates the regulatory direction that is making stacked revenue models like Greenvolt’s increasingly viable.

Coverage from Energy Global and Energy-Storage.news frames the 400 MW / 1.6 GWh portfolio as among the largest BESS developments in Poland, emphasising its role in grid flexibility, renewable integration, and energy security.

For investors tracking the CEE energy transition, the read is this: Statkraft’s willingness to commit to a 10-year tolling contract is a leading indicator of institutional confidence in Polish storage. The accumulation of firsts looks like a deliberate market-entry strategy, not opportunistic deal flow, and the mechanics offer a replicable template for how storage offtake is being structured across the region.

What comes next for the Ełk and Turośń projects, and for the market

The near-term milestones are concrete enough to watch. Ełk is targeting commercial operation in Q4 2026, while Turośń Kościelna was already inaugurated in July 2026. Capacity Market delivery for Turośń Kościelna begins in 2028 under its 17-year, 170 MW obligation, and the tolling term runs to approximately 2036 if measured from today’s announcement.

A 10-year commitment also carries structural risks that a headline superlative tends to obscure:

European BESS procurement costs face a new upward pressure from Chinese export tax rebate cuts, a policy shift that could alter the capital expenditure assumptions underpinning long-term tolling contracts signed at today’s hardware prices.

• Revenue cannibalisation: as more storage enters the market, arbitrage and ancillary-service returns may compress.
• Battery degradation: performance declines over the contract term, reducing available capacity.
• Regulatory change: shifts to balancing markets or ancillary-service procurement could alter the economics.
• Counterparty credit exposure: the deal depends on both parties staying financially sound across a decade.

The single number that would tell the market whether this structure is genuinely replicable is the tolling fee, and it has not been disclosed. Its absence means the deal sets a structural template without yet setting a pricing benchmark. What replicates easily is the shape: capacity market revenue, institutional financing, and a long-term tolling contract with a major trader, combined into a bankable profile.

For investors and developers, that distinction matters more than the record. Knowing both the milestones and the risks gives you a realistic view of what this agreement actually de-risks, and what it leaves open.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with financial professionals before making investment decisions. Forward-looking statements regarding project timelines and market developments are subject to change based on market conditions and various risk factors.