The German electricity storage developer BW ESS and the energy infrastructure developer Italian ACL Energy have committed to extend their partnership to co-develop an additional 11 sites for stand-alone, utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) with a total capacity of 2.5 GW in Italy. The energy storage owner-operators had initially announced in February 2024 their partnership to develop three projects with a total combined capacity of 400 MW. This expansion brings their joint project development pipeline for utility-scale BESS in Italy to 2.9 GW across Italy's North and South electricity zones. All the fourteen projects have secured land and grid access and are advancing towards obtaining their respective permits. Northern projects will target participation in the capacity market scheme, while Southern projects aim to bid in the Mechanism for Procuring Electricity Storage Capacity.
The Italian TSO Terna estimates that Italy should install 8.9 GW (71 GWh) of energy storage (including pumped-storage hydropower) to meet its decarbonisation targets by 2030.