IN Brief:
- Eni Storage Systems has started construction of an LFP battery manufacturing hub in Brindisi, Italy.
- Hithium has secured Spanish grant support for a battery and BESS manufacturing plant in Navarre.
- The developments strengthen Europe’s battery supply chain as grid-scale storage deployment expands.
Eni Storage Systems has started construction of a lithium iron phosphate battery manufacturing hub in Brindisi, southern Italy, adding industrial capacity to Europe’s grid-scale energy storage supply chain.
The company is a joint venture between Eni Industrial Evolution and FIB, part of Seri Industrial Group. The Brindisi site will manufacture battery cells and modules and assemble battery packs, with a focus on stationary battery energy storage systems. Alongside a second facility at Teverola, near Caserta, the wider programme is targeting combined annual production capacity of 16GWh by 2030.
Plans for the Brindisi facility also include a second phase covering LFP cathode active material production and battery recycling. That would move the site beyond cell and pack assembly into upstream material processing and end-of-life handling, both of which are gaining importance as battery systems shift from early deployment to large-scale infrastructure.
In Spain, Hithium has secured grant support for a battery and BESS plant in Navarre as part of a wider clean-energy manufacturing package. The award adds another European manufacturing milestone in a sector still heavily shaped by global cell supply, shipping exposure, and competition for production slots.
Europe’s storage market has expanded quickly, but many parts of the supply chain remain internationally distributed. Cells, modules, power conversion systems, controls, containers, fire safety systems, and software can cross several borders before a project reaches construction. That model has enabled rapid deployment, although it also leaves developers and utilities exposed to shipping delays, tariff uncertainty, qualification bottlenecks, exchange-rate movements, and stronger demand from other regions.
Large European storage projects are already moving into a different scale class, with around 11GWh of BESS capacity progressing across Germany, Poland, and Belgium. Manufacturing projects in Italy and Spain sit behind that deployment curve, supplying part of the industrial base needed to turn flexibility targets into installed, commissioned assets.
LFP chemistry remains central to stationary storage because it offers a mature balance of cost, cycle life, thermal characteristics, and supply availability. Other technologies are also being developed for grid applications, including sodium-ion storage systems aimed at large-scale use cases where material availability, temperature range, lifecycle profile, and safety characteristics can influence system selection.
Cell manufacturing, however, is only one part of a grid-scale storage project. A complete BESS requires battery containers, HVAC or liquid cooling, power conversion, transformers, medium-voltage switchgear, protection, SCADA, metering, fire detection, civil works, grid-code compliance, commissioning, and long-term service. Project success depends on the full system behaving reliably under contracted and merchant operating conditions.
That requirement is pushing the market toward more integrated delivery models. Partnerships between developers, EPCs, battery suppliers, and power conversion specialists are becoming more common, with system accountability increasingly valued alongside unit cost. The Greencells and Desay ESS alliance is one example of how European BESS delivery is being organised around interface control as well as product supply.
European governments are also treating battery manufacturing as industrial policy. The objectives extend beyond energy security into regional employment, reuse of industrial land, supply-chain transparency, and exposure to external manufacturing shocks. Public support still has to translate into factories that can meet price, quality, certification, and delivery demands from storage developers operating in competitive power markets.
The Italian and Spanish milestones do not remove Europe’s dependence on global battery supply, but they add regional depth. As storage becomes larger, longer-duration, and more directly tied to transmission planning and renewable integration, manufacturing strength will influence grid delivery. Capacity targets will carry weight only if cells, systems, electrical equipment, and installation capability arrive on time.
