UK-based Octopus Energy has agreed to set up a joint venture in China focused on spot power trading, in a bid to scale renewable electricity volumes as market reforms and demand growth accelerate.

Octopus Energy Group said it has partnered with China’s PCG Power to create a new company, Bitong Energy, to trade renewable energy across China’s electricity market. The joint venture was announced during UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s visit to Beijing in the final week of January.

Bitong Energy will combine PCG Power’s experience in commercial and industrial renewable energy with Octopus Energy’s technology for green energy trading and optimization. The company aims to annually trade up to 140 TWh of renewable power by 2030, with projected profits of around GBP 50 million ($68.7 million) per year, half of which will return to the United Kingdom.

The venture will launch in Guangdong province, China’s leading spot market, and expand nationwide as additional regions open. Octopus Energy said in an online statement that it will deploy its software to optimize the performance of batteries and renewable generation.

China’s electricity demand is expected to rise by about one-third over the next five years, with government mandates requiring at least 10% of electricity to be traded on spot markets this year, according to Octopus Energy.

The China joint venture follows earlier partnerships and capital commitments that have supported the UK energy supplier’s expansion beyond retail supply into energy software and clean energy infrastructure. Recent transactions in Europe and the United Kingdom show that the company aims to combine proprietary technology with institutional capital and industrial partners.

In July 2025, UK workplace pension provider Smart Pension committed GBP 330 million to two clean-energy funds managed by Octopus Energy Generation, targeting renewable energy projects and energy transition technologies in the United Kingdom. The allocation includes financing the United Kingdom’s first investor-funded ground-source heat pump network.

And in September, South Korea’s LG Electronics announced plans to integrate its high-efficiency heat pumps with Octopus Energy’s AI-driven Kraken energy software platform for key European markets, including the United Kingdom and Germany. The collaboration aims to optimize residential heating and cooling by linking heat pumps with Kraken’s grid-responsive controls to reduce energy costs and improve renewable integration.

Solar Energy Expo 2026, Poland’s flagship PV-plus-storage trade fair, returned this month with a small show-floor footprint but a sharp focus on flexibility and market reform, as well as the storage, inverter and grid-forming technologies shaping the nation’s next phase of grid integration.

Solar Energy Expo 2026 opened to visitors from Jan. 13 to 15 at Ptak Warsaw Expo, an exhibition center in the southwestern suburbs of the Polish capital. The sprawling complex – bordered on one side by an expressway and on the other by dense forest teeming with wild boar – only opened two halls for Poland's premier storage and solar event this year, leaving wide stretches of empty or partitioned‑off floor space.

That said, the slimmed-down affair – relatively low-key by global trade-fair standards – still held its own as one of Central and Eastern Europe’s most important regional renewables events – a claim backed by numbers. According to the event organizer, the fifth edition of Solar Energy Expo attracted 20,176 industry visitors, up 11% year on year, including 2,087 from foreign countries. It featured 315 exhibitors across 40,000 m² of exhibition space.

The 2026 edition of the solar fair was also held in tandem with the fifth PIME Storage Energy Summit, a pairing that shifted the week’s focus squarely onto storage policy, flexibility markets, and system‑planning debates. The storage summit has grown into one of Poland’s most influential energy‑system forums, and this year’s program reflected a sector in transition.

Poland’s solar market continues to expand at one of the fastest rates in Europe. The country surpassed 20 GW of cumulative PV capacity at the end of 2024 and reached 21.8 GW by the first quarter of 2025, according to the Instytut Energetyki Odnawialnej (IEO), Poland's leading independent think tank specializing in renewable energy. Annual PV additions hit 3.7 GW in 2024, with the IEO projecting similar growth in 2025 and 2026 as utility‑scale projects take a larger share of the market.

Meanwhile, Poland’s energy‑market reform drive is gathering real momentum as electrification accelerates across transport, heating and industry. Consulting firm Arthur D. Little projects national electricity demand rising from 154 TWh in 2024 to as much as 210 TWh to 230 TWh by 2040 – a structural shift that tightens the screws on a system already strained by coal retirements. That surge is forcing policymakers and system operators to confront the limits of the current market design and move beyond incremental fixes, accelerating reforms that can unlock flexibility, scale storage and modernize the mechanisms that keep the grid balanced.

Against that backdrop, summit panels examined the evolution of national energy policy, the impact of EU‑level flexibility mandates and the technical requirements for integrating storage into a grid increasingly shaped by variable renewables. Speakers framed storage as essential infrastructure for system security, balancing and resilience.

Unlike past editions of the conference, the panelists avoided speculative capacity claims. Poland currently has no official national storage target, though upcoming EU flexibility‑market rules will require the government to assess and plan for its storage needs. The panel discussions primarily centered on whether Poland should prioritize large centralized assets or accelerate distributed deployments, and how flexibility requirements will influence investment decisions.

Market‑mechanism reform emerged as a second major topic of discussion. The panelists dissected grid‑forming capabilities, flexibility products, connection‑cost adjustments and the qualification processes facing aggregators.

Several contributors argued that current reforms still fall short of enabling new entrants, while others pointed to slow permitting and grid‑connection procedures as a bottleneck for the scale of storage Poland will require. Business‑side concerns surfaced as well, with observers noting the dominance of Asian suppliers and warning that cost‑driven procurement could undermine long‑term system stability without stronger design standards and cybersecurity oversight.

On the trade‑show floor, exhibitors reflected a market diversifying across scale and technology. Utility‑scale developers and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors – including PGE Polska, Greencells, Photon Energy, BayWa re, Statkraft, Northland Power and Axpo – signaled continued momentum behind large PV and hybrid projects.

Battery and storage‑technology suppliers formed another major cluster. LG Energy Solution showcased its focus on upstream manufacturing, while Alpha ESS promoted its modular Storion systems for commercial and industrial (C&I) customers alongside utility‑scale offerings. Inverter and hybrid‑system makers such as BT Storage, Growatt, Fox ESS, Deye and Sigenergy also showcased solutions spanning the residential to C&I segments.

Systems integrators and balance‑of‑system specialists were out in force, with CORAB and SL Rack promoting their mounting‑system engineering solutons, while Wamtechnik and Elsta.pl showcased their expanding roles in battery energy storage system (BESS) integration. Ingeteam and Rawicom rounded out the segment by promoting their control-system know-how through energy management system (EMS) and battery management system (BMS) platforms designed for the increasingly complex demands of hybrid projects.

Smaller players such as Byotta, Volt Power (Soleos), SunSynk and Eenovance brought niche components and integration services to the table. And domestic PV brands were also out in force, with ML System, MarvenSolar.pl, Polak PV, Proton Solar, Paneclaw, Marstek Keno, Volvetia, Grodno, Runergy and Dome Solar showcasing modules, mounting hardware and distribution offerings tailored to Polish installers and EPC contractors.

Across conference rooms and exhibition aisles, the message was consistent: storage is shifting from a promising add‑on to a central pillar of Poland’s energy transition. Regulatory clarity, market access and flexibility compensation remain unfinished business, but even with a smaller footprint, the expo revealed an industry pushing ahead – cautious about policy gaps, confident in long‑term demand, and increasingly aware that the next phase of growth will hinge on how effectively storage is integrated into the national system.

The European Commission has launched an in-depth investigation to assess whether a €61 million ($71.6 million) arbitration award in favor of Malta-based ACF Renewable Energy is compatible with EU State aid rules.

The European Commission said it will investigate an arbitration award ordering Bulgaria to pay €61.04 million plus interest to ACF Renewable Energy Ltd., which invested in a Bulgarian solar plant under a 2011 renewable energy support scheme.

Bulgaria modified the scheme in 2013 and 2014, prompting ACF to pursue arbitration. The arbitral tribunal found Bulgaria breached the Energy Charter Treaty and awarded compensation in January 2024. Bulgaria notified the European Commission but has not paid the sum.

The European Commission said its preliminary view at this stage is that implementing the award would constitute state aid under Article 107(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, making it potentially incompatible with the internal market. The investigation will also consider whether the award breaches EU treaty provisions on the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

The probe allows Bulgaria and interested parties to submit comments. It does not indicate the European Commission’s final decision.

EU law generally prohibits intra-EU investor-state arbitration under bilateral investment treaties or the Energy Charter Treaty, following the 2018 Achmea judgment and the 2021 Komstroy ruling. The EU formally withdrew from the Energy Charter Treaty in June 2025.

The European Commission said that legal protections for investors remain through national courts and EU law, and member states must ensure renewable energy support measures are stable and do not undermine the economic viability of projects.

In December 2025, Bulgaria’s Ministry of Energy awarded more than 4 GWh of energy storage capacity across 31 projects under its RESTORE 2 procurement plan, committing BGN 228.9 million ($137.2 million) to develop standalone renewable energy storage infrastructure nationally.

And in October 2025, International Power Supply switched on Bulgaria’s first battery energy storage system (BESS) manufacturing facility near Sofia with an initial annual capacity of 3 GWh, with plans to expand to 5 GWh by the second quarter of 2026.