IN Brief:
- European battery storage projects totalling around 3.3GWh have moved forward across several markets.
- Projects include construction starts, acquisitions, optimisation agreements, joint ventures, and procurement activity.
- Capacity market contracts, solar co-location, merchant exposure, and grid services are shaping the project pipeline.
Neoen has started construction on a 25MW/100MWh battery energy storage system in Italy, forming part of a wider wave of European storage projects totalling around 3.3GWh across several markets.
The latest activity includes construction starts, acquisitions, route-to-market agreements, joint ventures, memoranda of understanding, and procurement moves across Italy, Romania, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Montenegro, and Moldova. Around 1GW is under construction, with roughly 1GWh approaching that stage and another 1GWh at earlier development or procurement phases.
In Italy, Neoen has started building the 25MW/100MWh Prasian di Prato Battery project in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The four-hour system has secured a capacity market contract, one of the revenue pillars supporting Italian storage investment alongside the MACSE auction framework. The project follows Neoen’s Broni Battery, a 10MW/40MWh asset also under construction in Italy.
Romania remains one of the more active European storage markets. Nofar Energy has signed agreements to build two large-scale BESS projects totalling 280MW/860MWh, co-located with its Lepuresti and Ghimpati solar PV plants. Repono has also appointed route-to-market and optimisation partners for a 202MW/404MWh Romanian project, with Gunvor providing a cap-and-floor toll structure and Enspired handling trading and optimisation.
German activity includes Return starting construction of a 15MW/29MWh project in Brietlingen, Lower Saxony, with operation scheduled for November 2026. RWE is also preparing a solar-plus-storage project at the Hambuch opencast mine in Rhein-Erft, combining 16.5MWp of solar with an 80MWh BESS and targeting operation by the end of the year.
In Poland, Green Capital and Prime Capital have formed a joint venture to develop two BESS projects totalling 300MW and 1.2GWh. The first project is due to start construction in the second quarter of 2026, while the second is expected to reach ready-to-build status by the end of the year. Both projects have 17-year capacity market contracts.
Denmark has also seen activity, with Enka Energy Transition acquiring a 50MW/150MWh ready-to-build BESS project in Grenaa from BattMan Energy. Montenegro’s national utility EPCG has signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan’s PowerX targeting around 500MWh of storage capacity over an initial three-year period, while Moldova’s CET-NORD has relaunched procurement for a 70MW BESS at its Bălți thermal power plant.
The breadth of activity shows how European storage is moving into a more varied project phase. Early markets were often led by ancillary service opportunities or short-duration balancing. Current projects are being structured around capacity contracts, solar co-location, tolling, route-to-market optimisation, grid reliability, peak shaving, and frequency regulation.
The location of storage assets is becoming as important as their headline capacity. E.ON’s proposal for firm batteries to support local grid constraints reflects a wider shift toward storage that is planned around specific network conditions, rather than installed simply where land and connection are available.
Software and trading capability are also moving into the centre of storage economics. NGEN’s AI-led battery control platform points to the increasing role of optimisation, degradation management, market access, and automated dispatch as storage portfolios grow.
The latest European project wave also highlights an uneven market. Italy and Poland are leaning on capacity-style frameworks, Romania is moving quickly through solar co-location and investor activity, Germany is developing merchant and hybrid models, and smaller markets are testing procurement and utility-led deployment. Across those differences, storage is becoming part of the operating structure of Europe’s power system rather than a peripheral renewable add-on.
