First come, first served no longer. This principle is now finished with at Germany’s Bayernwerk Netz—the major distribution system operator (DSO) serving the German state of Bavaria and a subsidiary of energy giant E.ON. The change applies specifically to battery storage systems with more than 300 kW of import capacity and consumers with a power requirement exceeding 1,000 kW.
Moving forward, an allocation procedure based on published criteria will apply to these grid connections. With this change, the distribution grid operator aims to allocate available grid capacity in a more transparent, predictable, and efficient manner.
Netze BW, another major grid operator in the neighboring state of Baden-Württemberg, home of the Black Forest, also recently moved away from the first-come, first-served approach. In the future, project maturity will be the primary deciding factor for grid connections there. Unlike Bayernwerk Netz, however, the Netze BW procedure also applies to generating facilities with a capacity of 950 kW or more.
Willingness to provide flexibility taken into account
When allocating capacity, Bayernwerk Netz will weigh criteria including a project’s maturity, willingness to provide flexibility, potential for co-location with a renewable energy plant, consideration of local infrastructure, and location constraints resulting from investments already made. The grid operator will also factor in the project’s contribution to statutory climate targets.
Bayernwerk Netz will collect all applications in semi-annual cycles and prioritize them based on these defined criteria. The technical grid assessment will then follow this prioritization. The allocation process ends when the available grid connection capacity has been distributed or the priority list of eligible applications has been fully processed. The grid operator intends to prevent speculative applications by requiring a realization deposit, stressing that capacity requests should only be submitted for seriously planned projects.
After the procedure is completed, all applicants will receive binding feedback on whether they were allocated capacity. Projects that are not selected can participate again in the next allocation cycle, though application data will not be carried over automatically.
Exemptions
The criteria-based allocation procedure is effective immediately, with the digital application portal scheduled to launch on October 12, 2026. Exempt from the new procedure are generators as well as vulnerable institutions such as hospitals, emergency services, and educational facilities. The new process also does not apply to so-called green power storage systems, as they do not draw power from the distribution grid. Heating projects based on municipal heat planning are similarly exempt. For all these groups, the existing connection process remains unchanged.
As the new allocation procedure does not inherently create additional grid capacity, the Bayernwerk subsidiary plans to invest around €12 billion in grid expansion between 2026 and 2030.
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