Chint Solar Europe, the European renewables arm of China's Chint Group, has sold a five-project, 56 MW/180 MWh standalone battery energy storage portfolio in eastern Germany to Prague-based energy trader Second Foundation in what the companies describe as a forward commercial-operations-date (COD) transaction — a structure still uncommon in Germany's storage market.
Five projects across eastern Germany, online between 2026 and 2027
The portfolio sits across Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg, with the first site already under construction. Grid connection is scheduled between the second quarter of 2026 and the third quarter of 2027. Chint Solar Europe will deliver each asset turnkey and stay on as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor and operations and maintenance (O&M) provider after handover — an end-to-end execution package that is helping Germany's BESS M&A market mature from raw development-rights trading.
First storage portfolio deal for Chint, a step into ownership for Second Foundation
The deal marks Chint Solar Europe's first battery energy storage portfolio transaction in Germany and signals a strategic pivot from pure solar PV development into integrated energy infrastructure. The company has flagged that it may now offer BESS EPC services to third parties. For Second Foundation, the acquisition extends a build-out that already includes 307 MW of BESS slated for commissioning in the Czech Republic this year, on top of a 600 MW pipeline already under construction. The Prague firm accounts for roughly 8% of Germany's continuous intraday electricity trading volume — a position that lets it pair fast-cycling battery assets directly with merchant trading revenues.
Germany's BESS market shifts toward forward-COD M&A
The transaction lands in the same week as Aquila Clean Energy EMEA's fully merchant financing of Project Wetzen and the Energy Storage Summit at the Battery Show Europe in Stuttgart. German developers are increasingly selling not just permits but turnkey, near-ready assets with construction, O&M and grid timing locked in — a sign that storage investors are now paying a premium for execution visibility. The deal also slots into a broader cross-border European storage push from Chinese-owned developers, alongside recent moves by GM, Peak Energy, LG and Redwood Materials in the U.S. and a thicket of utility-scale BESS rollouts profiled this week on The Robotics Media.
Reporting based on coverage from Renewables Now, ESS News, Energy-Storage.News and Osborne Clarke.