Germany’s largest battery storage financing relies on tolling, not subsidies

This is what a subsidy-free balance sheet looks like on the ground, three hundred megawatts of capacity now spoken for years before commissioning

(Image courtesy of ECO STOR)

NORD/LB, one of Europe’s most active BESS lenders with multiple gigawatt‑hours of storage financed across the continent, structured this as one of its large‑scale German BESS financings. Banco Santander joined as co‑lender. Clifford Chance advised the lending parties and Hogan Lovells advised ECO STOR, signalling the transaction’s scale relative to prior German storage financings.

Inside Germany’s largest battery storage financing deal

NORD/LB, one of Europe’s most active BESS lenders with more than 11GWh financed across the continent, structured this as one of its large-scale German BESS financings. Banco Santander joined as co-lender. Clifford Chance advised the lending parties and Hogan Lovells advised ECO STOR, signalling the transaction’s scale relative to prior German storage financings.

ECO STOR is backed by renewable developer X-ELIO and investment firm Nature Infrastructure Capital, which funded construction before the debt package closed. The Saxony-Anhalt site, near Staßfurt, connects to the grid through transmission operator 50Hertz under a flexible connection agreement that constrains ramp rates and ancillary service provision, a condition Next Kraftwerke has built directly into its trading strategy for the asset.

The tolling agreement behind the numbers

The financing rests on a Flexibility Tolling Agreement signed with Next Kraftwerke in June 2026. Under the five-year deal, Next Kraftwerke provides a contracted revenue framework for 80% of the battery’s capacity, trading that share across day-ahead, intraday, and balancing markets. The remaining 20% stays exposed to merchant pricing.

That structure gives lenders a degree of revenue certainty without locking the entire asset into a single price. Deployment happens in three 100MW blocks, with the first entering the market in November 2026 and full 300MW capacity reaching commercial operation in 2027. Reported capacity has moved slightly across the project’s life, from around 714MWh at the November 2025 groundbreaking to 718MWh at financial close, consistent with detailed engineering refinement during construction.

Why the financing model matters for battery storage project developers

ECO STOR and Next Kraftwerke have described Förderstedt’s tolling-plus-merchant split as a new standard in storage marketing, distinct from the fully fixed-price tolling deals that have characterised earlier German storage financing. Both companies have positioned the deal publicly as evidence that large-scale battery storage can now be financed without subsidy or a fully fixed-price contract. Flexibility Purchase Agreements of this kind remain a young instrument in Germany.

The timing intersects with a regulatory deadline that matters directly to procurement and investment teams. German rules exempt BESS projects commissioned by August 2029 from certain grid fees, a window Förderstedt’s 2027 commissioning date comfortably clears. That deadline is a general planning constraint shaping how developers structure financing on projects further down the pipeline, though it isn’t a stated design driver specific to the Förderstedt transaction.

Förderstedt’s close does not settle how German storage financing evolves from here. What it demonstrates is that a hybrid revenue structure, rather than a full offtake contract, can now clear underwriting at 300MW scale. Whether that model becomes the template for the next wave of German BESS projects, or one option among several as more tolling providers enter the market, is likely to depend in part on how the first 100MW block performs once it starts trading in November.

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