Transmission

Battery factories can now produce roughly twice the storage cells the world installs each year, yet cell prices rose in 2026. Lithium, tariffs and sourcing rules, not manufacturing costs, now decide what a battery costs and where it can be sold.
Iola Hughes, Head of Research at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, returns to Transmission to explain what is really moving the global battery market, from Chinese factory lines to US tariff schedules.
They cover:
Why a storage cell costs around $50/kWh in China, while US prices are ticking up, and why there's no longer one global battery price.
What China's anti-involution campaign means for an industry with 6 to 6.5 TWh of cell capacity running at around 50% utilisation.
Why over 1 GWh of sodium-ion storage projects were cancelled this year, and why new chemistries must beat where lithium-ion will be in five years, not where it is today.
How Bulgaria installed over 5 GWh of battery storage this year and overtook Germany, as average project sizes doubled to more than 200 MWh.
Can the US become a battery manufacturing hub? Its 2030 storage cell pipeline has grown from 70 GWh to over 300 GWh, and data centres could drive around 30% of US storage demand by 2030.
Want to see what batteries are earning across GB and Europe? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI energy analyst: https://modoenergy.com/product/ko?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=iola_hughes&utm_content=ko_signup
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.
00:00 Introduction
01:19 Why there's no single global battery price
03:03 Have battery prices hit the floor?
04:06 Lithium prices, export rebates and China's anti-involution campaign
06:01 China's battery overcapacity explained
09:41 Battery oversupply vs storage demand: the gap that doesn't add up
11:18 How much do cell prices matter for battery project costs?
12:09 Why China's battery storage market slowed this year
13:29 Has sodium-ion earned a place in grid storage?
15:23 What sodium-ion needs to win: lithium prices and use cases
17:36 Sodium-ion's coconut shell supply chain problem
18:26 Sodium-ion cycle life: brochure specs vs real-world data
20:13 Eastern Europe and Bulgaria: the new battery storage hotspot
22:36 US battery storage: tariffs, tax credits and policy noise
24:37 Is the US becoming a battery manufacturing hub?
27:56 How many batteries do data centres need?
31:00 EVs vs stationary storage: the battery demand split
33:30 Drones and defence: a new battery demand segment
35:49 Why are new battery factories still being built?
38:14 Why the top cell maker isn't the top system supplier
40:15 Contrarian view: why LFP and NCM keep winning

Battery factories can now produce roughly twice the storage cells the world installs each year, yet cell prices rose in 2026. Lithium, tariffs and sourcing rules, not manufacturing costs, now decide what a battery costs and where it can be sold.
Iola Hughes, Head of Research at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, returns to Transmission to explain what is really moving the global battery market, from Chinese factory lines to US tariff schedules.
They cover:
Why a storage cell costs around $50/kWh in China, while US prices are ticking up, and why there's no longer one global battery price.
What China's anti-involution campaign means for an industry with 6 to 6.5 TWh of cell capacity running at around 50% utilisation.
Why over 1 GWh of sodium-ion storage projects were cancelled this year, and why new chemistries must beat where lithium-ion will be in five years, not where it is today.
How Bulgaria installed over 5 GWh of battery storage this year and overtook Germany, as average project sizes doubled to more than 200 MWh.
Can the US become a battery manufacturing hub? Its 2030 storage cell pipeline has grown from 70 GWh to over 300 GWh, and data centres could drive around 30% of US storage demand by 2030.
Want to see what batteries are earning across GB and Europe? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI energy analyst: https://modoenergy.com/product/ko?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=iola_hughes&utm_content=ko_signup
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.
00:00 Introduction
01:19 Why there's no single global battery price
03:03 Have battery prices hit the floor?
04:06 Lithium prices, export rebates and China's anti-involution campaign
06:01 China's battery overcapacity explained
09:41 Battery oversupply vs storage demand: the gap that doesn't add up
11:18 How much do cell prices matter for battery project costs?
12:09 Why China's battery storage market slowed this year
13:29 Has sodium-ion earned a place in grid storage?
15:23 What sodium-ion needs to win: lithium prices and use cases
17:36 Sodium-ion's coconut shell supply chain problem
18:26 Sodium-ion cycle life: brochure specs vs real-world data
20:13 Eastern Europe and Bulgaria: the new battery storage hotspot
22:36 US battery storage: tariffs, tax credits and policy noise
24:37 Is the US becoming a battery manufacturing hub?
27:56 How many batteries do data centres need?
31:00 EVs vs stationary storage: the battery demand split
33:30 Drones and defence: a new battery demand segment
35:49 Why are new battery factories still being built?
38:14 Why the top cell maker isn't the top system supplier
40:15 Contrarian view: why LFP and NCM keep winning

Germany’s battery storage pipeline looks like a “tsunami” on paper, but grid connection requests say little about how many projects actually get built. The ones that do face a hard deadline: reach final investment decision this year to keep the grid fee exemption, while the rules that replace it are still being finalised.
Ed Porter is joined by Marie-Sophie Braun, Head of Markets and Regulatory Affairs at Kyon Energy, a German battery storage developer that now operates its own assets as an independent flexibility provider, to unpack how investment decisions get made when the rules are still moving.
They cover:
- Why the flood of grid connection requests says little about how much BESS Germany will build, and why the storage industry has no incentive to overbuild.
- How Kyon is approaching final investment decisions to keep the grid fee exemption for assets live before August 2029, why seven months is tight for an infrastructure investment, and why Marie still calls the new grid fee regime a fair compromise.
- What separates a flexible connection agreement a bank will finance from one that stalls projects, and why uncompensated curtailment needs a clear cap.
- Why Kyon splits comparable assets across different route-to-market providers, and what it wants to see from optimisers beyond the pitch deck.
- Why Germany pushes co-located storage and renewables while applying different grid rules to each, and what a split into price zones would mean for flexibility.
Want to see how German batteries are performing? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, can answer questions on German BESS revenues, grid fees and the build-out.
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.
### Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:11 What people get wrong about German battery storage
03:31 Why Kyon went from developer to operator
07:42 Should developers optimise in-house?
08:57 The FID deadline and AgNes grid fee reform
12:17 Dynamic and locational grid fees
14:20 Flexible connection agreements and financing
17:03 Benchmarking route-to-market providers
19:57 TSO vs DSO: who benefits from batteries?
23:52 Should Germany split into price zones?
27:28 Contrarian view: different rules for co-located assets

Germany’s battery storage pipeline looks like a “tsunami” on paper, but grid connection requests say little about how many projects actually get built. The ones that do face a hard deadline: reach final investment decision this year to keep the grid fee exemption, while the rules that replace it are still being finalised.
Ed Porter is joined by Marie-Sophie Braun, Head of Markets and Regulatory Affairs at Kyon Energy, a German battery storage developer that now operates its own assets as an independent flexibility provider, to unpack how investment decisions get made when the rules are still moving.
They cover:
- Why the flood of grid connection requests says little about how much BESS Germany will build, and why the storage industry has no incentive to overbuild.
- How Kyon is approaching final investment decisions to keep the grid fee exemption for assets live before August 2029, why seven months is tight for an infrastructure investment, and why Marie still calls the new grid fee regime a fair compromise.
- What separates a flexible connection agreement a bank will finance from one that stalls projects, and why uncompensated curtailment needs a clear cap.
- Why Kyon splits comparable assets across different route-to-market providers, and what it wants to see from optimisers beyond the pitch deck.
- Why Germany pushes co-located storage and renewables while applying different grid rules to each, and what a split into price zones would mean for flexibility.
Want to see how German batteries are performing? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, can answer questions on German BESS revenues, grid fees and the build-out.
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.
### Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:11 What people get wrong about German battery storage
03:31 Why Kyon went from developer to operator
07:42 Should developers optimise in-house?
08:57 The FID deadline and AgNes grid fee reform
12:17 Dynamic and locational grid fees
14:20 Flexible connection agreements and financing
17:03 Benchmarking route-to-market providers
19:57 TSO vs DSO: who benefits from batteries?
23:52 Should Germany split into price zones?
27:28 Contrarian view: different rules for co-located assets

What if a battery storage project could lock in its revenue before it's earned it? SSE and Statkraft have done just that with a battery revenue swap: SSE gave up the ups and downs of battery income for a fixed price, Statkraft took them on, and both energy companies came out with less risk.
On this episode of Transmission, Ed Porter is joined by Josh Brown, Origination Team Manager at SSE, and Cian O'Duffy, Energy Markets Quantitative Analyst at Statkraft, two people behind the deal, to explain how energy trading deals like this work and who could do one next.
They cover:
- How a battery revenue swap is set up, and why it needs far less paperwork than a wind farm PPA.
- Whether a swap changes how you run your battery, and what basis risk means for owners.
- How wind farms, solar farms and energy suppliers could use battery revenues to manage risk.
- Why big businesses might buy a virtual battery instead of building their own.
- What's next for battery storage deals, plus two contrarian views on CfDs and battery revenues.
Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, about battery revenues, power prices, wind, solar and data centres: Try for free
Transcript available here
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.
Chapters:
00:00 What is a battery revenue swap?
01:11 How energy trading deals get set up
03:07 Why SSE sold its battery revenue risk
05:11 Why Statkraft wanted more battery risk
06:27 How big the SSE and Statkraft deal is
07:40 How swap contracts work (ISDA explained)
10:39 Does a swap change how you run your battery?
12:35 UK-wide vs regional battery indices
13:55 Can wind and solar farms hedge with batteries?
17:26 Battery revenues vs other ways to hedge
20:27 Virtual batteries for big energy users
24:30 What comes after swaps? Options and floors
28:46 How CfDs affect negative electricity prices
31:02 Why battery revenues could be a rocky ride
33:26 Wrap-up