AgNes reform 2026: strategic course-setting for Ylektra’s agrivoltaics and battery storage

3 min read · Updat­ed on 22 Octo­ber 2026

The guide­lines for reform­ing the gen­er­al grid charge sys­tem (AgNes) pre­sent­ed by the Fed­er­al Net­work Agency (BNet­zA) on 27 May 2026 mark an impor­tant point for the oper­a­tion of agri­v­olta­ic sys­tems and bat­tery stor­age. As a com­pa­ny with a project pipeline of more than 850 MW, we at Ylek­tra fol­low this process active­ly in order to align our projects with the new reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments at an ear­ly stage.

1. New rules on grid charges for generators and battery storage

Until now, gen­er­a­tion plants have been exempt from grid charges. The BNet­zA is now sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly end­ing this priv­i­lege in order to achieve a “fair dis­tri­b­u­tion of the bur­dens”.

• Capac­i­ty-based financ­ing: In future, gen­er­a­tion plants and stor­age are to pay an annu­al capac­i­ty price. For agri­v­olta­ic sys­tems, an ini­tial val­ue of 4 to 7 euros per kW of installed capac­i­ty per year is envis­aged.
• Grand­fa­ther­ing: A key result for investors is the pro­tec­tion of legit­i­mate expec­ta­tions. Exist­ing instal­la­tions are exempt for 20 years from com­mis­sion­ing. This pre­serves the eco­nom­ic basis of our exist­ing projects.
• Con­trol­la­bil­i­ty as a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage: The BNet­zA stress­es that costs should be borne where they arise. Agri­v­olta­ic sys­tems that sup­port the grid through intel­li­gent design will be treat­ed pref­er­en­tial­ly in the com­ing reg­u­la­to­ry struc­ture.

2. The “regulatory key”: agrivoltaics with battery storage

The treat­ment of stor­age is the most com­plex part of the AgNes reform. This is the cur­rent sta­tus for project devel­op­ers:

• Exemp­tion from grid charges until 2029: The BNet­zA is main­tain­ing the exist­ing exemp­tion under Sec­tion 118(6) of the Ener­gy Indus­try Act (EnWG) until 4 August 2029, but with a deci­sive restric­tion: the final invest­ment deci­sion for the project must be tak­en before the final AgNes deter­mi­na­tion enters into force (expect­ed in ear­ly 2027).
• Invest­ment pro­tec­tion: Stor­age sys­tems con­nect­ed to the grid by the 2029 cut-off date are exempt from grid charges on elec­tric­i­ty drawn from the grid for 20 years. For Ylek­tra projects, this means that accel­er­at­ed plan­ning and invest­ment cer­tain­ty are essen­tial to secure this sta­tus.
• Dynam­ic grid charges from 2030: The BNet­zA plans to apply dynam­ic grid charges to stor­age, as “pio­neers” of flex­i­bil­i­ty, from 2030 at the ear­li­est. These are intend­ed to cre­ate incen­tives for grid-sup­port­ing oper­a­tion, a devel­op­ment for which our agri­v­oltaics with bat­tery stor­age sys­tems are pre­des­tined, as they are designed for high­ly dynam­ic load pro­files any­way.

3. Why Ylektra follows regulatory developments closely

With a pipeline of more than 850 MW, reg­u­la­to­ry mon­i­tor­ing is not a pas­sive process but active risk man­age­ment. Our analy­sis of the AgNes papers feeds direct­ly into our plant design:

• Proac­tive site selec­tion and grid con­nec­tion plan­ning: As grid con­nec­tion capac­i­ty is becom­ing increas­ing­ly scarce and grid charges for feed-in will be intro­duced in future, we select our sites accord­ing to cri­te­ria of “grid avail­abil­i­ty”.
• Hybrid archi­tec­ture: We no longer size stor­age at agri­v­olta­ic parks only to max­imise rev­enue through arbi­trage, but as a tool to avoid cur­tail­ment. This reduces the load on the grid and posi­tions our instal­la­tions opti­mal­ly for future flex­i­bil­i­ty mar­kets.
• Long-term rev­enue cer­tain­ty: We use the clar­i­ty of the inter­im AgNes sta­tus to val­i­date financ­ing mod­els that take into account both the new capac­i­ty charge log­ic (from 2029/30) and grand­fa­ther­ing.

Conclusion: the new era of grid economics

We all have to pre­pare for grid charges apply­ing to our projects in future. The intro­duc­tion of capac­i­ty charges means that care­ful site analy­sis and the qual­i­ty of the grid con­nec­tion will play a much more impor­tant role in future than before.

The eco­nom­ics of agri­v­olta­ic projects and bat­tery stor­age will depend even more strong­ly in future on how effi­cient­ly we use the grid infra­struc­ture. Have your poten­tial sites checked ear­ly by the experts at Ylek­tra for their fea­si­bil­i­ty under the new reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work. We analyse the grid con­nec­tion poten­tial for you, so that your project remains suc­cess­ful in this new envi­ron­ment.

Con­tact us for a site assess­ment