In Ukraine, Greece and India the bids are going to storage, not solar alone
Serguey Asael Shinder2 min readThree reports published on 29 September, from three very different markets, point the same way: capital that used to chase stand-alone solar is now asking for storage.
Ukraine. Two auctions run by the state offtaker Guaranteed Buyer on 25 September had very different results, according to preliminary figures from the Solar Energy Association of Ukraine reported by pv magazine. A 50 MW lot for stand-alone solar, with a ceiling of €0.08 per kWh, drew three bids from two companies for 38.99 MW, 78% of the lot. A 100 MW solar-plus-storage lot, with a ceiling of €0.12, drew 26 bids from 24 companies for 385.9 MW, almost four times the lot, with bids from €0.0597 to €0.1145. The association attributes the lower prices in the hybrid round to much stronger competition. The results are preliminary.
Greece. At a storage conference in Athens, the solar association HELAPCO said the country could install 8.6 GW of batteries by 2030, while Aurora Energy Research forecast 4 to 5 GW. Of 900 MW awarded in earlier subsidised auctions, about 400 MW is connected and all of it should be running by the end of 2026; most of the rest is expected to be merchant or co-located with solar.
India. Crisil Ratings expects 45 to 50 GWh of battery capacity to be commissioned in fiscal years 2027 and 2028, up from about 1 GWh at the end of fiscal 2026. Projects with storage made up nearly 40% of auctioned capacity in fiscal 2026, against about 5% in the two years before. Crisil flags 8 to 9 GWh as at higher risk of delay because of weak returns and inexperienced developers.
What connects them
In each case the signal comes from people committing money, not from targets. Where midday solar already floods the grid, a panel without a battery sells its output at the hour it is worth least, and bidders price that in. The Ukrainian result is the clearest: a higher price ceiling for hybrids drew so much competition that many hybrid bids came in below the solar-only average. The warning sits in the Indian figures: a fast pipeline also produces projects that bid too low to be built.