Most countries aim to diversify their energy sources and reduce their dependency on fossil fuels. Batteries are central to that transition to renewable energy. They determine how much electricity a storage system can hold and feed into the power grid.
Some countries have already brought battery capacities online in recent years, while many others have committed investments to expand theirs, revealing their pipelines.
So, which countries have the highest operational battery capacity across Europe? And when the pipeline is included, which countries emerge as the leaders?
According to Ember’s European and Türkiye Electricity Review 2026 reports, Germany leads Europe in operational battery capacity at 2.8 gigawatts (GW), followed by Italy (2 GW).
A second group sits between 0.5 GW and 1 GW: Ireland (0.92 GW), Sweden (0.75 GW), Bulgaria (0.56 GW) and France (0.52 GW).
Romania (0.49 GW), Belgium (0.47 GW), Finland (0.39 GW), the Netherlands (0.39 GW) and Turkey (0.21 GW) round out the rankings below 0.5 GW.
No country matches Turkey’s battery ambitions
When project pipelines are included, a very different picture emerges — and Turkey stands out as the most ambitious country in Europe for battery expansion.
Project pipeline is computed as the sum of the following categories: in construction, permitted and announced.
Turkey’s project pipeline of 32.8 GW is more than three times that of its nearest rivals: Germany (10.5 GW), Poland (10.4 GW) and Italy (10.2 GW).
“[In Turkey] the policy’s key success came when the regulator opened up unlimited grid capacity for storage-integrated wind and solar projects, which led to a flood of investor interest,” Ufuk Alparslan, regional lead at Ember, and author of Türkiye Electricity Review 2026, told Euronews Business.
Pipelines are, of course, not guaranteed — but if these investment plans are realised, they are decisive in shaping expected total capacity. That would make Turkey the leader in Europe with a total battery capacity of 32.97 GW.
Germany (13.26 GW), Italy (12.15 GW) and Poland (10.42 GW) would follow, each at roughly a third of Turkey’s total.
According to Ember, Romania, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium would also see significant improvements in battery capacity — though still modest compared to the top four.
Reasons behind huge expansion
Dr. Beatrice Petrovich, senior energy analyst at Ember and author of European Electricity Review 2026, emphasized that falling battery prices are driving the rapid battery storage deployments across Europe.
“Grid-scale battery costs dropped to a record low in 2025, a 45% drop from 2024, continuing a trend of roughly 20% annual cost reductions over the past decade. As battery economics improve, projects are increasingly profitable without subsidies,” she told Euronews Business.
Petrovich also noted that the scale of operational and upcoming battery fleets across European countries ultimately depends on policy choices while technology and economics are now largely in place.
“Stable policy frameworks unlock battery potential because they mean predictable revenue streams which allow project developers to attract capital,” she said.
Petrovich, explained that several EU countries, including Bulgaria, Italy, and Spain, already demonstrate how policies can accelerate deployment.
“Germany also illustrates how policy uncertainty can slow progress. Proposed preferential treatment for gas in backup power tenders and uncertainty over changes to grid fee risk undermining investor confidence,” she added.
France lags behind in battery expansion
France would more than double its capacity, reaching 1.12 GW. Yet that would still leave it among the lowest in the rankings, second from the bottom among the 16 countries on the list.
Nuclear energy is central to France’s energy mix, which may help explain why its battery ambitions remain limited. While nuclear power accounts for 12% of the EU’s energy mix, France leads the bloc at 40%. In 2025, nuclear energy made up 69% of France’s electricity production according to Ember.
Can Turkey’s pipeline be built?
Alparslan pointed out that when a power plant project is approved and obtains a pre-license, it only guarantees grid capacity. Although securing grid capacity is one of the biggest hurdles for new installations, it does not guarantee that the project will come online.
“Investors are eager to complete these projects. The [Turkish] government’s decision on timeline extensions will determine how much of the planned capacity is realized,” Alparslan told Euronews Business.
“If these projects fail to materialize after extensions, they will effectively block new wind and solar installations by occupying available grid capacity,” he added.
As of late 2025, Turkey’s total installed wind and solar capacity reached 40 GW. Therefore, the 33 GW battery project pipeline corresponds to 83% of the country’s existing wind and solar capacity.
However, the report notes that while batteries globally average 2.5 hours of storage, most of Turkey’s projects have short storage durations of around one hour.