EDF Pilot Clears Path for 1 GWh Iron-Air Storage Deployment in Europe
Ore Energy secured a 1 GWh offtake agreement after completing a grid-connected pilot at an EDF site in France, targeting multi-day storage without lithium or cobalt.
The completion of a grid-connected pilot at an EDF site in France has triggered a 1 gigawatt-hour offtake agreement for Ore Energy's iron-air long-duration storage technology across European grids, with Budget Thuis, a Dutch energy company, committing to a 400-megawatt-hour first phase.3,2
Iron-air batteries can store electricity for between 24 and 100 hours using only iron, water and air, with no lithium or cobalt, a chemistry designed for grid applications where oversupply persists across days rather than hours.3 Aytaç Yilmaz, Ore Energy's co-founder and chief executive, said European grids were already "wasting electricity that costs billions" through curtailment.3
Aurora Energy Research put the 2024 curtailment figure at 72 terawatt-hours across Europe, at a cost of roughly €8.9 billion, as grid bottlenecks blocked surplus wind and solar generation from reaching demand centres.2 The European Commission's Joint Research Centre projects annual curtailment could reach 310 TWh by 2040 without sufficient grid investment, roughly half the EU's combined wind and solar output in 2022.2
Budget Thuis chief executive Annemarie Buitelaar said iron-air was "especially compelling because it is designed for the long-duration use cases that conventional battery chemistry cannot address."2 The company said it was committing to 1 GWh across its portfolio on the back of existing grid-connected deployments — two had been completed before the commercial agreement was signed.2,3
That sequence, pilot before commercial commitment, is what LDES investors and offtakers have been demanding in a sector where prototype-stage announcements have outnumbered delivered systems. EDF's involvement in the pilot before the offtake was signed gives the agreement a degree of technical validation that earlier-stage deals lacked.3
In Britain, Ofgem backed 16 long-duration energy storage projects on Tuesday (2026-06-30) under a government support scheme, in the same week that Zenobe Energy lost a legal challenge over its own storage contracts, illustrating how contested the regulatory and commercial environment for non-lithium storage has become across Europe.3
The deal also connects to shifting demand signals in France. EDF said in May 2026 that electrification was "imperative" given the latest energy shock and announced plans to grow electricity demand in France by 5.5 terawatt-hours annually, roughly 1 percent per year, through heat pumps, electric trucks and turnkey industrial site connections.1 France's nuclear baseload creates sustained overnight surplus that multi-day storage can absorb, making it a structurally fitting market for iron-air in a way that systems with flatter generation profiles are not.
Academic modelling supports the scale argument. Analysis by TU Berlin using the PyPSA-Eur framework found that a zero-carbon German power system incorporating iron-air storage at scale could require around 32 percent less wind and solar capacity, by enabling generation to be stored across multiple days rather than curtailed or backed by peaking gas.2 The result is a model output, not a market projection, but the directional case that multi-day storage can trade against renewable overbuild is increasingly central to European grid planning discussions.
The commercial path from a 400 MWh first phase to a 1 GWh portfolio depends on unit economics that iron-air manufacturers have not yet demonstrated at volume. ICE Endex TTF front-month gas held at €43.83 as of Tuesday (2026-06-30), and with storage revenues driven by the spread between curtailment periods and peak demand windows, the viability of unsubsidised iron-air contracts in Europe still hinges on the depth of that spread. German power day-ahead settled at €97.86 at the same time. The next test is whether the 400 MWh phase executes on time and at the cost Ore Energy needs to build the rest.