According to the data, Italy’s battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity will reach 587MW/1,227MWh in the first three months of 2022, of which 977MWh is distributed energy storage.
Like Germany, Italy's battery energy storage system market is currently dominated by the residential and commercial and industrial sectors.
20,832 DER BESS (electrochemical distributed energy storage) units were installed from January to March, totaling 123MW/264MWh. This brings the total installed power and capacity of DER BESS units in the country to 527MW/977MWh. Together with grid operator Terna's own BESS units totalling 60MW/250MWh, Italy has a total of 587MW/1,227MWh of battery storage systems.
Of the total DER BESS units (currently a total of 95,869), 97% are combined with solar photovoltaic systems, of which 97% are residential units, 98.2% are lithium-ion batteries, and the remainder are lead-based flywheel batteries and supercapacitors.
In addition to that, about 95% of them are less than 20kWh, and only 6 are greater than 500kWh.
In terms of geographic distribution, a handful of wealthy northern regions account for about half of the DER BESS market, reflecting their share of the wider economy. Lombardy, where Milan is located, has the largest share, accounting for about 22% of the market, followed by Veneto with 16%, Emilia-Romagna with 10% and Piedmont with about 9%.
The deployment figures for the first quarter of 2022 are impressive, representing 60% of the full-year figures for 2021, thanks to a new rebate scheme for the deployment of residential and commercial storage systems alongside PV.
The number and capacity of utility-scale battery energy storage system projects operating in Italy should grow in the coming years, with several large systems due to come online in 2023, and Terna recently contracted for 1.1GW of energy storage assets, which will be Delivery in 2024.
Next year, Spain-based energy conversion equipment specialist Ingeteam will recently supply 340MWh of electricity in the north to serve Terna's grid, while global systems integrator Fluence will supply part of the 250MW project that won a fast reserve service in 2020. Contracts
