Linklaters has advised the lenders on the €97.5 million financing of Project Volt, a 170 MW battery energy storage system in La Louvière, Belgium, developed by Aukera Energy in joint venture with Weerts Group, in a transaction that reached financial close on 29 May 2026 and represents one of the largest battery energy storage assets currently under construction in Belgium.
The Linklaters team was led by partner Laurens Cools in Brussels, with Henri Boone covering the finance side alongside associates Adeline Delguste and Antoine Degryse, Atdhe Krasniqi on real estate aspects and Melissa Verplancke and Laure Driessen on energy regulatory matters. Liedekerke acted as legal adviser to the borrower, Aukera Energy, with RINA Consulting serving as lenders’ technical adviser.
The €97.5 million financing structure brings together ABN AMRO Bank N.V. and Triodos Bank as senior co-lead arrangers and bookrunners alongside a junior debt tranche provided entirely by Belgian institutional investors — I4B as lead junior lender, alongside Wallonie Entreprendre and SOCOFE.
Project Volt secured a 15-year contract in Elia’s Y-4 Capacity Remuneration Mechanism auction in November 2025 — a competitive process in which new battery storage capacity successfully displaced incumbent gas generation — providing the long-term revenue certainty that underpins the financing structure. Commercial operation is expected in mid-2027.
Aukera Energy, headquartered in Brussels and backed by Belgium’s Federal Holding and Investment Company SFPIM, currently has more than 810 MW in construction or operation across four European countries. Project Volt is its first battery storage asset in Belgium and the transaction demonstrates the growing bankability of large-scale BESS assets in European capacity markets, where long-term CRM contracts are increasingly enabling project finance structures that attract both senior bank debt and domestic institutional junior capital simultaneously.
For energy finance practices the Linklaters instruction reflects the expanding legal advisory market for battery storage project finance across Europe. The combination of capacity market revenues, senior bank debt from ABN AMRO and Triodos, and a fully Belgian junior debt layer involving multiple institutional investors required coordinated finance, real estate and energy regulatory advice across a single transaction — a structure that has become the template for bankable BESS financings in markets with established capacity remuneration mechanisms.
As the UK, France, Germany and other European markets develop comparable BESS financing structures through 2026, law firms with established energy project finance practices — including Linklaters, Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy Shearman and Herbert Smith Freehills — will compete for the growing pipeline of battery storage mandates that the energy transition is generating across the continent.