Irish energy storage developer Aer Soléir and Turin-based energy provider Altea Green Power have signed an agreement to jointly invest and develop a 510MW battery storage project in Italy.
The parties signed a purchase agreement and co-development agreements related to four large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects.
Aer Soléir said the development of each project had been completed, and the company had purchased land from Altea Green Power to deploy the battery storage system prior to construction.
Three of the battery storage systems will be deployed in Puglia, and the fourth in Piedmont, a region in northwestern Italy.
The companies noted that the development of large-scale battery energy storage systems responds to a recent goal by Italian Energy Minister Roberto Cingolani, which has set a goal of adopting 70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
Italy has also received part of the economic recovery funds provided by the European Union in response to the new crown epidemic, a considerable part of which is earmarked for green energy sector activities.
According to the data, Italy is one of the four key markets currently leading Europe in energy storage deployment. The other three are the UK, Germany and Ireland.
The Italian National Renewable Energy Association claims that the country's cumulative battery storage capacity has exceeded 1.2GWh, although a large portion of this is distributed storage (about 977MWh) rather than large-scale battery storage.
Opportunities for these storage systems include serving the frequency response market in the pan-European market, but Italian grid operator TERNA has also opened up the capacity market to battery storage systems, offering an auction to newly deployed battery storage systems in February this year. A 1.1GW contract was awarded.
Aer Soléir received a $250 million funding commitment in April from U.S. clean energy investor 547 Energy International, which is seeking investment in development-stage clean energy projects across the European Union.
