Statkraft signs 235MW battery deal in Finland as storage becomes system-critical
Yusuf Latief
Posted on: 27 February 2026
The BESS will optimise against wind volatility as combined energy storage in Finland exceeds 1GW.
Norwegian PPA and renewable energy producer Statkraft and Swedish developer OX2 have signed a BESS agreement in Finland, where approximately 1,050MW of combined storage has been installed.
Statkraft and OX2 signed the seven-year, 235MW battery energy storage agreement, marking Statkraft’s largest in the Nordics to date.
The batteries will be located at the same site as OX2’s wind projects Kannisto in Halsua municipality and Korkeamaa in Soini municipality in Finland.
Statkraft will optimise the batteries over a seven-year term, starting in 2028, along with a revenue floor structure to support the project’s financing.
Commenting in a release was Hallvard Granheim, Executive Vice President Markets, Statkraft: “We are proud to partner with OX2 in what is our largest battery optimisation agreement in the Nordics to date.”
Long term optimisation agreements like this provide predictable revenues, which can be an important enabler for developers when financing battery energy storage projects, while also supporting the delivery of much needed system flexibility.
Battery energy storage is increasingly acknowledged as a crucial part of the energy transition due to its ability to manage intermittent renewable energy generation.
This is especially the case in Finland, where wind power is mostly generated on the country’s west coast, a concentration that risks price cannibalisation, price volatility and grid bottlenecks, according to a study by LUT University.
So said Granheim: “Long term optimisation agreements like this provide predictable revenues, which can be an important enabler for developers when financing battery energy storage projects, while also supporting the delivery of much needed system flexibility.”
Heikki Herttuainen, Senior Originator, Statkraft Finland: “This agreement underlines the growing role of battery storage in Finland’s energy market.
“As wind power expands, batteries are essential to managing intermittency and unlocking flexibility for the system. Optimising these assets locally allows us to support grid stability while creating value for both the developer and the Finnish power market.”
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Storage in Finland
As Herttuainen noted, storage is becoming increasingly important to Finland’s power market, and recent data support this.
Fingrid, the country’s transmission system operator, released an update two days before Statkraft's announcement that the country's combined storage capacity has now reached 1,050MW.
Specifically, says the TSO, by early February, 261 storage systems had been reported, with a combined power capacity of approximately 980MW. In addition, the electricity system includes numerous smaller batteries, whose capacity is estimated at around 70MW.
This capacity means that electricity storages could momentarily discharge as much power as the Loviisa nuclear power plant units (507MW each) produce in total.
If, on the other hand, all electricity storages in Finland were charging simultaneously at full power, the load would correspond to twice the peak electricity consumption of the entire city of Tampere, the country’s third largest city by population.
In terms of storage types and capacity, Fingrid found that 56% of electricity storages are connected to the distribution grid and 44% to the transmission grid. Additionally, 85% of electricity storages have a capacity of less than 2 MW, 8% have a capacity of 2–10 MW, and 6% have a capacity of more than 10 MW.
Location is everything
Similar to the study from LUT, Fingrid notes the importance of the location of electricity storage for the power system as it participates in reserve markets and increasingly also in balancing generation and consumption on the electricity exchange.
This storage, they add, can be challenging in some locations, as a storage system reserves grid capacity in both charging and discharging directions. This situation is becoming increasingly visible in the power grid as storage capacity grows rapidly and the size of individual storage systems is significant.
Single large electricity storage can already correspond in power capacity to a medium-sized Finnish town.
The windiest locations aren't always the best for wind power.
As the electricity storage business is inherently location-independent, it is important that storages do not congest the grids and slow down the connection of electricity consumption projects that are dependent on specific locations.
In their study, LUT University says that a potential remedy to the high concentration of storage along the west can come in the form of wind dispersion, which would reduce the fluctuation of electricity prices and improve both wind power profitability and electricity market operations.
Said Junior Researcher Markus Salmelin from LUT's Laboratory of Electricity Markets:
“The windiest locations aren't always the best for wind power. Distribution across Finland decreases price cannibalisation, price volatility, and harmful grid bottlenecks while increasing the profitability of investments.”
According to their study, dispersed wind power could reduce electricity price fluctuations and lower prices by as much as € 1.40/MWh on average.
