Behind the eye-popping headline number sits a misfiring connection regime that rewards speed over substance—and risks slowing, not speeding, the energy transition.
The number that broke the internet (meter)
In the past few days, Germany’s grid operators have confirmed they are now sitting on more than 500 GW of grid-connection requests for large battery energy storage systems (BESS). The figure comes from a fresh tally by the analyst platform Regelleistung-Online, which totted up 470.5 GW from the four transmission system operators (TSOs) plus just three of the country’s ~800 distribution system operators (DSOs). That implies the true total “is certainly above 500 GW.”
Drill down, and the picture is uneven. At the TSO level the queue is 259 GW—50Hertz hosts 103 GW, Amprion 86 GW, TenneT 52 GW and TransnetBW 18 GW—with a further 211.5 GW already logged by the three DSOs in the sample (E.DIS 39.5 GW, Westnetz 60 GW, Mitnetz 7 GW). Germany has roughly 800 DSOs, so the overall volume across distribution networks is almost certainly greater.
Context matters. Germany’s peak load is about 75 GW today; even on the government’s 2030 plan—around 400 GW of renewables (c. 215 GW solar, 115 GW onshore wind, ≥30 GW offshore)—a 500 GW storage connection queue sits several turns ahead of system need. The point is not that batteries don’t belong on the system—they are essential—but that the queue has ceased to be a realistic proxy for near-term buildout.
How we got here: the Windhundprinzip
The culprit is regulatory plumbing rather than speculative mania per se. Germany’s grid-connection process largely follows the Windhundprinzip—literally “greyhound principle,” or first come, first served. Applications are processed in time order, not by project readiness, location suitability or system value. Developers therefore rush to file, sometimes at oversized capacities or in multiple locations, simply to secure a slot, while operators must wade through a mountain of low-probability projects. Several grid companies and industry observers have called the rule “misguided” in today’s context.
TSOs say the logjam is already biting. 50Hertz warned in July that, given existing commitments, no new connection promises are feasible before 2029 in its area—hardly a recipe for getting critical storage online where it is actually needed.
Legally, operators are obliged under Germany’s Energy Industry Act to grant access on non-discriminatory terms, which the industry has long interpreted as compatible with first-come processing. That interpretation was reinforced this summer by a Federal Court of Justice ruling allowing building-cost contributions (Baukostenzuschüsse) to be levied on BESS connections—shifting meaningful costs onto projects only after they win scarce connection rights rather than at the application stage. The combination of queue priority without early economic screening encourages option-like behaviour.
Signal vs noise: what’s actually being built
The mismatch between applications and assets is stark. On the ground, Germany’s grid-scale battery fleet has just passed ~2 GW of power and ~2.8 GWh of energy, with average durations near 1.4 hours; analysts expect ~3 GW online by year-end if projects stick to plan. Across all segments (mostly residential PV-paired systems), installed usable capacity was about 22 GWh by mid-2025, and total power around 14.5 GW. That’s impressive growth—but a very different scale from >500 GW in requests.
Markets that learned this lesson earlier have already pivoted. In Britain, for example, the system operator is replacing first-come, first-served with “first-ready, first-served” gating that pushes speculative projects out and prioritises those that have land, permits and financing lined up. Texas’ ERCOT now publishes queue-progress data and, crucially, sees high conversion in zones where price signals are clear. Germany doesn’t need to copy-paste foreign solutions, but the direction of travel is instructive.
Where the real bottlenecks are: local networks and time
Most of Germany’s congestion is local. DSOs, not TSOs, are where renewable build-out meets physical constraints. That’s why fast feasibility screening tools are spreading: Mitnetz and partners have rolled out SNAP/SNAP Pro—a real-time online pre-check that tells developers, in seconds, whether a connection is even plausible and where the nearest viable substation is. It’s not a panacea, but it deters “spray-and-pray” applications and saves both sides months.
At the same time, connection flexibility is getting a hearing. DSOs are experimenting with flexible connection agreements—export caps, dynamic congestion signals, or DSO APIs that curtail batteries at constrained times—in exchange for earlier energisation. That keeps assets earning while grid upgrades catch up, and it steers them towards grid-supportive operation.
The money question: fees, incentives and bankability
The queue dynamic is distorted because real money bites late. Up-front application is cheap; the heavy costs arrive at connection. The BGH ruling in July confirmed that DSOs may levy BKZ—often multi-million-euro cheques for large projects—on storage as on other users. That will discipline some speculation, but only when projects have clawed their way to the front of the queue.
Further out, the regulator has opened the AgNes process—a root-and-branch redesign of Germany’s electricity network-tariff system to take effect by 2029. Among the hot topics are dynamic network charges that reward “grid-helpful” behaviour and, contentious for storage, whether exemptions from certain grid fees should narrow. If dynamic (time- and location-reflective) tariffs arrive, batteries that genuinely relieve congestion could see lower effective costs than those that simply arbitrage wholesale spreads.
Germany, battery storage, BESS, grid connection, interconnection queues, Windhundprinzip, TSOs, DSOs, energy policy, flexibility, dynamic tariffs, co-location, EU power markets, project financeOn the revenue side, developers in Germany increasingly toll their assets—granting an offtaker operational rights for a fixed fee—to stabilise returns in the absence of a capacity market. That supports financing, but tolling only works if the asset actually connects. Which is why queue reform is not a niche concern; it is the precondition for making bankable projects out of Germany’s giant storage ambition.
Co-location and the “option value” of a queue slot
One rational response to clogged queues is to piggyback on existing rights. Developers are rediscovering co-location—adding batteries at PV or wind sites that already have, or can expand, a grid connection. It’s not new, but in today’s Germany it can be the difference between energising in 2026 and waiting into the 2030s.
The other, less savoury, response is to treat a connection promise like an option: grab capacity early, oversize the request, then decide later whether to build, sell, or resize. Regelleistung-Online’s critique is blunt: the current rules set the wrong incentives, clogging operators with low-probability paperwork. A functioning queue must penalise hoarding and reward maturity—with deposits, proof-of-readiness milestones, and expiry.
What a smarter queue would look like
Germany doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel; it needs to sequence three changes:
- Move from first-come to first-ready. Gate projects by objective milestones (site control, permits, financing, technology choice) and eject laggards. The UK is already doing this, and its battery pipeline is converting faster as a result.
- Price the queue. Introduce reservation fees and performance bonds that scale with requested capacity and are refundable upon timely build—discouraging speculative oversizing without excluding serious players. Regelleistung-Online goes further, suggesting auctions for capacity at constrained nodes; that would surface the true scarcity value of scarce bays.
- Digitise the front door. Make pre-screening universal and mandatory, using DSO tools like SNAP as the template, with a single national portal that shares live capacity maps and standardises application data. That alone would wipe out thousands of doomed filings and months of back-and-forth.
Layer on flexible connections—export caps lifted over time as reinforcement lands—and you have a credible path to bring useful storage online quickly without short-changing communities waiting for grid upgrades.
Winners, losers—and what to watch
- Winners: Developers with mature pipelines and co-location options; DSOs that adopt fast screening and flexible connections; offtakers ready to toll assets and aggregate ancillary services under new tariff designs.
- Losers: Paper pipelines that can’t pass readiness gates; queue slot hoarders facing reservation fees; projects banking solely on wholesale spreads if dynamic tariffs reward congestion relief instead.
Near-term signposts (next 6–12 months):
- Whether BNetzA codifies AgNes proposals that lean toward dynamic network tariffs for flexibility assets.
- How TSOs such as 50Hertz operationalise their 2029 constraints—do they pilot first-ready ordering within the legal wiggle-room?
- Adoption trajectory for DSO pre-checks (SNAP-style tools) and flexible connections in congested regions.
- Actual energisations: Germany’s grid-scale fleet crossing 3 GW this year would be a substantive, not headline, sign of momentum.
Bottom line
Germany’s 500 GW battery queue is not a market forecast; it’s a policy artefact. It tells us less about how many MWh the country will build than about how it allocates a scarce public good: access to the grid. Shift the incentives—first-ready, priced reservations, universal pre-screening, flexible connections, and dynamic tariffs—and the queue will shrink to something realistic, financeable and fast. In the meantime, investors should read the number not as a tsunami but as a smoke signal: the system is warning that its rules, not its ambition, are the bottleneck.
