Battery storage, energy sharing, customer installations and grid operators – What changes are envisaged by the amendment to energy industry law

The “Act on the Amendment of Energy Industry Law to strengthen Consumer Protection in the Energy Sector and to amend other Energy Industry Regulations”, which was passed by the German Bundestag on 13 November 2025 and by the Bundesrat on 21 November 2025, provides for extensive changes to energy industry law – particularly with regard to battery storage, energy sharing, customer installations (“Kundenanlagen”) and the liability of grid operators.

Changes for battery storage

For battery energy storage systems (BESS) – and thus for both operators and investors in BESS – the law provides for several groundbreaking innovations:

• The amendment in section 118(6) sentence 3 of the Energy Industry Act (Energiewirtschaftsgesetz, EnWG) clarifies that the grid fee exemption is only granted for the amounts of electricity that are fed back into the same grid. This means that BESS that only feed part of the stored electricity back into the same grid can also be exempt from grid fees. Only electricity quantities that are consumed by the BESS itself and not fed back into the same grid, or electricity quantities that are forwarded to consumers behind the BESS and consumed by them and thus not fed back into the same grid, are not exempt from grid fees. By referring to the corresponding application of section 21 of the Energy Financing Act (Energiefinanzierungsgesetz, EnFG), the grid fee exemption also applies to bidirectionally used charging points for electric vehicles, provided that the electricity taken from the grid during bidirectional charging is later fed back into the grid.
• Large battery storage facilities with a minimum storage capacity of one megawatt hour will in future be covered by the privilege provision in section 35(1) German Federal Building Code (Baugesetzbuch, BauGB). This will result in planning law simplifications for battery storage facilities, as they can now be built and operated in rural areas on a privileged basis. This regulation promotes the stabilisation and relief of the electricity grid by allowing large battery storage facilities, which due to their size and nature are dependent on proximity to a substation and a high-voltage grid node, to be built in rural areas under building planning law. However, there are already signs of a further amendment to the law that could make the privilege subject to additional conditions; initial details on this will be presented at the end of this article.
• The expansion of battery storage facilities will continue to be subject to the priority rule under section 11c EnWG, according to which the construction and operation of battery storage facilities are in the overriding public interest and serve public health and safety, is equated with the expansion of renewable energies in accordance with section 2 of the Renewable Energy Act (Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz, EEG 2023), in that the priority rule is now limited in time until the electricity supply in Germany is almost greenhouse gas neutral. In practice, the priority rule means a significant acceleration and facilitation of storage projects due to the clear priority in the weighing of protected interests.

Energy sharing

Energy sharing, introduced by section 42c EnWG, presents both opportunities and obligations for grid operators and residual electricity suppliers on the one hand, and offers various advantages for participating plant operators and end consumers on the other. The amended version from the end of 2024 was largely taken up again. According to the adopted version of the law, companies that join together exclusively for the purpose of shared energy use can now operate facilities for shared energy use. And small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can also participate in shared energy use as end consumers.

Transitional solution for customer installations

Following the ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) on the legal concept of “customer installations” (“Kundenanlagen”), section 118(7) EnWG provides for a welcome transitional solution, according to which energy installations falling under the definition of customer installations will remain exempt from regulations governing energy supply networks until 31 December 2028 if they were already connected to an energy supply network before this law came into force (see our previous article: Temporary relief for operators and users of customer installations (“Kundenanlagen”)). In this way, the legislator is granting both the operators of customer installations and itself additional time. The operators affected can use the next two years to adapt to the new legal situation and make the necessary structural adjustments. The legislator is also creating the opportunity to develop adjustments to the national legal framework with the participation of all stakeholders and, if necessary, the European Commission, and to influence the design of EU law if necessary. Incidentally, the wording of the definitions of customer installations in section 3 No. 65 EnWG and section 3 No. 66 EnWG corresponds to the previous wording in section 3 No. 24a EnWG and section 3 No. 24b EnWG.

Changes for network operators

For network operators, section 11(3) EnWG and Section 118(2) EnWG create legal certainty in that the provisions on liability limitation for network operators under section 18 of the Low Voltage Connection Ordinance (Niederspannungsanschlussverordnung, NAV) and section 18 of the Low Pressure Connection Ordinance (Niederdruckanschlussverordnung, NDAV) will remain in force even after the Electricity Network Access Ordinance (Stromnetzzugangsverordnung, StromNZV) and Gas Network Access Ordinance (Gasnetzzugangsverordnung, GasNZV) expire on 31 December 2025. In addition, a new regulatory authority is being created for the federal government as the regulator so that in future the liability of network operators under contract and tort for property damage and financial loss suffered by a network user as a result of disruptions to network use can continue to be regulated – and thus limited in particular to intentional or grossly negligent causes and limited in amount.

It will also be important for network operators to see how the German Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur, NetzA) will use the authority granted to it in section 14(1a) EnWG. According to this, the BNetzA can extend the accounting compensation for Redispatch 2.0 measures to the distribution network level by means of a determination authority limited until 31 December 2031. Instead of accounting compensation, section 14(1b) EnWG also provides for a financial expense reimbursement claim by the plant operator against the grid operator, which is considered part of the financial compensation for a generation adjustment.

To implement Article 20a(1) and (2) of the Renewable Energy Directive (Directive (EU) 2023/2413, known as RED III), section 23c(2a) and (2b) EnWG sets out new publication requirements for transmission system operators. In future, transmission system operators will be required, among other things, to provide and update hourly data on the share of renewable energies in the grid and on the average greenhouse gas emissions of the energy supplied to the respective bidding zone on a joint website.

Outlook or what else the amendment to energy industry law regulates

Following the amendment to energy industry law – even though it has not yet been published in the Federal Law Gazette and has therefore not yet entered into force – the change to energy industry law is imminent. With regard to customer installations, for example, the legislator has only created a transitional solution until 31 December 2028 and must now ensure further legal certainty and clarity.

In addition, according to the resolution passed in the legislative process, the federal government is also to present regulations to improve the grid connection process and to better enforce the acceleration of the smart meter rollout.

In its meeting on 21 November 2025, the Bundesrat also passed a resolution calling on the federal government to make the privilege for battery storage systems in non-urban areas subject to a (further) timely amendment on the condition that the privilege must serve the public supply of electricity. The Bundesrat cites as possible criteria for this a grid-friendly or at least grid-neutral effect, as well as the location, size and land use of the battery storage facilities. In this regard, a draft from the governing coalition is already circulating, according to which the privilege in non-urban areas should only apply to battery storage facilities where “the project is spatially and functionally related to an existing facility for the use of renewable energies” or if “the project is located no more than 200 metres from the property boundary of a substation or a power plant in operation or decommissioned with a rated output of 50 megawatts or more, and the battery storage facility has a rated output of at least 4 megawatts and the total area used in the same municipality does not exceed 0.5 % of the municipal area and does not exceed 50,000 m²”. Based on this new draft law, it can already be stated today that the changes to the legal framework will continue.