What Businesses Across Europe Are Telling Us About the Energy Transition

Across Europe, businesses are looking for ways to reduce costs, improve energy efficiency, increase resilience and make better use of renewable energy. While each market has its own regulatory environment, energy landscape and business realities, conversations with customers and partners reveal common priorities.

At Greenvolt Next, we combine the strength and expertise of an international renewable energy company with a deep understanding of local markets. Through our recent initiative across Romania, Spain, Greece and Greenvolt Next Comunidades in Portugal, as well as through our wider presence across European markets, we had the opportunity to engage directly with businesses, partners and industry stakeholders. These conversations offered valuable insight into what companies are looking for as they navigate the energy transition, and how distributed energy solutions can help address their needs.

Sustainability continues to be an important consideration for businesses, but economic value remains a fundamental part of the conversation. For many companies, the transition to renewable energy starts with a simple question: how can we reduce and better manage our energy costs?

This was particularly evident in conversations with partners in Romania, where energy prices and market uncertainty have made energy management an increasingly important business consideration. For businesses operating energy-intensive sites, generating renewable energy locally can provide an opportunity to reduce reliance on external electricity and increase control over energy costs. Solutions such as on-site solar generation can therefore support both sustainability objectives and broader business priorities.

When considering an investment in renewable energy, businesses want to understand what the solution can deliver in practice. Conversations during the event in Greece reinforced the importance of real-world examples. Customer success stories and proven projects provide a valuable reference point, helping businesses understand how renewable energy solutions can work in environments similar to their own.

The questions are often practical: What results can we expect? How will the solution integrate with our operations? What has worked for other businesses? And what kind of return can the investment deliver?

For this reason, experience matters, and Greenvolt Next can help. Every project adds to a growing body of knowledge about how businesses can implement renewable energy across different sectors, sites and markets. Sharing this experience allows companies to move from considering what might be possible to understanding what has already been achieved.

Another theme increasingly present in conversations across European markets is energy storage.

As businesses increase their use of renewable generation, interest in batteries is growing alongside it. The ability to store electricity and use it when it is most valuable can help businesses make better use of their renewable generation, increase flexibility and improve the way they manage their energy consumption. The growing interest in battery solutions is particularly relevant as businesses look beyond simply generating renewable energy and towards more integrated approaches to energy management.

Recent conversations in Spain, including those around projects such as Comansa, highlighted this growing interest and the role that storage can play alongside renewable generation. As energy systems become more decentralized, businesses are increasingly looking for solutions that combine generation, storage and intelligent energy management.

Romania, Spain, Greece, Portugal, and other European markets may have different energy systems, regulations and levels of renewable energy adoption. Yet the conversations happening within them reveal many of the same underlying business challenges.

Companies want to reduce costs. They want solutions that have been proven to work. They are increasingly interested in technologies such as battery storage. And they want trusted partners who can help them navigate an increasingly complex energy landscape. What differs is how those challenges need to be addressed.

Local market knowledge is essential to understanding the specific opportunities available to each business. At the same time, an international perspective provides access to experience, expertise and solutions developed across different markets.

This combination is at the heart of Greenvolt Next’s approach. By connecting teams and expertise across Europe while remaining close to the businesses and partners in each market, we can identify common challenges, share knowledge and deliver distributed energy solutions that create lasting value to local realities.