Welcome back to The Pexapark Podcast! In the first part of the episode, Luca Pedretti is joined by Niels Jakeman, Head of Energy Origination Europe at NORD/LB, to explore how battery storage is being financed today and what lenders look for as the market matures. With around 30 GWh of storage financed globally and decades of experience across renewables and infrastructure finance, Niels offers a lender’s perspective on bankability, risk allocation, and how storage fits into the broader evolution of renewable project finance.

The discussion cuts straight to the issues shaping the future of storage finance, including:

• How renewable financing has evolved from feed-in tariffs to merchant exposure – and what that means for storage
• What makes a storage project bankable, from location and stakeholders to contracts and warranties
• How lenders assess merchant risk, arbitrage, ancillaries, and battery degradation
• The shift from simple tolling agreements toward more complex optimization and hedging structures
• Why hybrid portfolios combining renewables and storage are increasingly attractive from a financing perspective

In the second part of the episode, the focus turns to recent Pexapark market intelligence, with a closer look at France’s new power market regime following the expiry of the ARENH mechanism. The episode explains how the new nuclear clawback framework and long-term industrial supply agreements with EDF are reshaping price formation – and why these changes are setting important benchmarks for PPAs and private offtake in the French market heading into 2026.

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