The lowdown: The growth of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) necessitates accessible, standardised PPA contracts to maximise benefits for buyers and sellers. Analysis of various hybrid structures reveals a clear price premium and increased Projected Settlement Value (PSV) over pure-play solar PPAs. We’ve selected five key hybrid PPA structures that PPA players need to know about to make informed decisions and capture rewarding financial returns.
Although adding battery storage energy systems (BESS) to PPAs brings new considerations, it doesn’t need to be prohibitively complex. Moreover, the multiple revenue streams that BESS unlocks allows for asset optimisation to the benefit of both buyer and seller.
The reorientation of European clean energy development towards more BESS and hybrid facilities is good news. However, as more storage assets come online, simplified, well-defined offtake approaches are lacking. Buyers and sellers need accessible contracts to tap the benefits of storage.
A real-world example
In 2025, LevelTen worked with MaxSolar to bring a hybrid PV + BESS PPA to market in Germany. The goal was to create a bespoke offering that could shape power delivery to meet specific buyer needs – a first for this type of PPA in the German market.
The first step was to define the different offtake structures the hybrid asset could unlock and provide in-depth analytics for each option. Using live market data accessible through the LevelTen MarketPulse platform, in combination with a selection of leading third-party price curves, LevelTen drew up forecasts of the project settlement value (PSV) for each of the PPA products that MaxSolar was able to offer to buyers. Here’s what that looked like:
Bringing it all together
Through this successful case, we learned from buyers that, while utilities and sophisticated corporates are willing to take on the day-to-day management of the BESS system, most corporate buyers are not. For these, a simple hybrid structure that delivers the upside of the storage, without requiring battery management, is required.
For these, we have developed five simple hybrid structures which give instant value to a PPA without the complexity of battery management. These structures, which are covered in detail in our recent Hybrid for Everyone report, are:
Green BESS
A virtual or physical agreement that ensures the shaped delivery and traceability of clean power.
TBx
A virtual storage contract which can improve the performance of an existing, underperforming PPA.
TBx + PPA
A virtual agreement that brings a PPA and TBx settlement into a single contract, providing enhanced risk mitigation in a simplified package.
Hybrid Floating Block
A virtual contract that improves capture rates and mitigates the “duck curve” by spreading a facility’s as-generated volume evenly across a 16-hour block.
Hybrid Custom Block
A virtual agreement that shapes delivery to match real-world demand via specific fixed delivery shapes.
Each of these deal types offers specific advantages depending on market conditions, buyer requirements, and offtake profiles.
Crucially, each one delivers the value and risk-mitigation of storage, without encumbering the energy buyer with management of the battery. The financial returns can be highly rewarding, as the graph below reveals. This shows the Projected Settlement Value (PSV) of various PPA contract types in Spain in the final quarter of 2025, according to a blend of third-party long-term price forecasters. This data is based on real projects.
PSV spread of solar and storage-enabled contracts, Spain (Q4 2025)
While a price premium is clear with hybrid contracts, so too is an increase in projected values compared to pure-play solar PPAs (shown here in yellow). In the example above, every hybrid structure delivers increased projected settlement values (PSVs) compared to standalone solar – meaning that the increased captured prices not only make up for the premium, but provide a net increase in value across the tenor of the contract.
Want to go deeper?
We recently put together a detailed report which covers these five deal types in depth, highlighting which buyer profile each one is best suited for and what the implications are for factors such as settlement volume, settlement price, Guarantees of Origin (GOs) and more.
You can download the entire guide for free here.
Got questions? Connect with Andres via LinkedIn or reach out to our team.
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