Osborne Clarke advises NORD/LB on the tolling-based financing of one of the largest battery energy storage projects in Germany

Osborne Clarke has provided legal advice to NORD/LB Norddeutsche Landesbank on the financing of a battery energy storage project in Schuby, Schleswig-Holstein. The battery storage facility, constructed by ECO STOR, has an output of 100 MW and a capacity of 238 MWh, making it one of the largest large‑scale battery storage systems in Germany currently under construction.

Construction of the Schuby facility is already under way, with commissioning scheduled for mid‑2026. The facility comprises, among other things, 64 battery containers, 32 inverter systems and a substation, spread over an area equivalent to around three football pitches. In purely mathematical terms, the storage capacity is sufficient to supply electricity to around 20,000 households for several hours. The storage system makes it possible to temporarily store electricity generated from the electricity grid and feed it back into the grid when needed, thereby making an important contribution to stabilising the electricity network in a region with a high share of renewable energies.

A key component of the project is a tolling agreement concluded in November 2025 between ECO STOR and Swiss energy group Alpiq. Under this agreement, Alpiq obtains the right to optimise the use of the battery storage facility over a period of five years at the ancillary services and wholesale markets. The predictable revenues generated under the tolling agreement form a central basis for structuring bankable project financing and demonstrate how large‑scale battery storage projects in Germany can be realised without government support.

Germany has set itself the goal of building around 100 GW of storage capacity by 2030 – an expansion that will require substantial private investment. The financing of the Schuby storage facility is exemplary of new, market‑oriented financing structures based on commercial revenue mechanisms and long‑term partnerships between project developers, the energy industry and financial institutions.

“We are very pleased to support ECO STOR in the financing of its large‑scale battery storage project in Schuby. Together with Osborne Clarke, we have succeeded once again in structuring the complex interaction between financing, tolling agreement and regulatory requirements in such a way that it is both bankable and scalable,” says Marcus Starke, Director Energy Origination at NORD/LB. “Osborne Clarke’s highly practical and solution-driven advice has made a significant contribution to addressing risks transparently and developing a viable model responding to regulatory and technical challenges that can serve as a blueprint for further battery storage financings. We see this as an important step towards scaling and accelerating the energy transition in Europe.”

“The financing of the Schuby storage facility marks another milestone in the German market for large‑scale battery storage,” adds Dr Daniel Breuer, Head of Energy & Energy Transition at Osborne Clarke. “In this transaction, we were able to draw on our experience from numerous storage and flexibility projects to develop, together with NORD/LB, a robust, market‑oriented structuring concept – from the optimal alignment of the tolling agreement and the financing through addressing regulatory and technical challenges and dynamic changes of the regulatory framework. The added value lies in the fact that banks and project developers receive a legally robust and at the same time commercially viable set‑up with which comparable projects can be implemented more quickly and efficiently in future.”

Osborne Clarke advised NORD/LB comprehensively on the financing and energy law aspects of the transaction, including contract structuring, the interaction between the tolling agreement and the financing, and the regulatory framework for large‑scale storage projects.

The Osborne Clarke team that advised NORD/LB under the joint lead of Olexiy Oleshchuk (Lead Project Finance) and Dr Daniel Breuer (Lead Energy) comprised Gabriela von Wietersheim, Andreas Baumann, Dominik Weickert, Arsen Dutka and Hriday Chawla (all Project Finance), as well as Dr Marleen Rheker, Bineta Diambang, Tim Schultze, Veronika Thalhammer, Dr Maria Batyreva, Friedrich Polzin, Dr Maximilian Orthmann (all Energy) and Konrad Teßmar (Legal Project Management).

The project company ECO STOR was legally advised by Hogan Lovells.