Energy Storage: The Problem Isn't the Technology — It's the Market
At the Portugal Energy Storage Forum 2026, organized by APREN, it was argued that what holds back batteries in Portugal isn't market volatility — comparable to California or Texas — but the lack of diversified revenue streams.
STARTSIMPLE attended the Portugal Energy Storage Forum 2026, organized by APREN, hearing an analysis of the real storage challenge: Portugal has volatility levels comparable to or higher than California or Texas, yet far fewer batteries installed — what differentiates these markets is not volatility, but revenue streams.
Revenue diversification and the role of the State
In more developed markets, batteries earn revenue across multiple fronts — arbitrage, capacity markets, system services, and balancing/intraday — a diversification that, in the UK and Germany, underpins investment, but which remains incomplete in Portugal. According to the analysis, public support should be a last resort, not a starting point: markets must first be opened and remuneration mechanisms created; only then do supports such as CAPEX grants (as in Bulgaria) or long-term contracts (Italy, UK) make sense.