Saudi Arabia and the UAE have emerged as two of the world’s most prominent energy storage markets, with mega-scale projects announced and moved forward at a staggering pace over the last two years. But what does the next phase look like?

Gore Street Capital has completed a first close for its GS EU Fund SCSp, which will target battery storage investments mainly in the European Union.

BESS Large-Scale Fire Testing (LSFT) has been adopted as part of best practice thinking on safety validation, with at least a dozen companies announcing tests and results and many more expected going forward. It becomes mandatory in the 2026 edition of NFPA 855.

The UK market saw strong interest and activity in 2025 but now appears to be shifting from a development market to one focused on execution, writes Solar Media analyst Charlotte Gisbourne.

Another roundup of European grid-scale BESS project news, led by MORE and Zenobe putting Greece and UK projects into operation, and major project financings/construction starts by Acacia in France, Greenvolt in Hungary and Eco Stor in Germany.

While the UK grid-scale BESS market continues to be among the busiest in Europe, there are still huge questions and plenty work to be done in several key policy areas.

Virtual BESS tolling platform startup Terralayr has raised €192 million (US$223 million), primarily for its own build-own-operate BESS pipeline. CEO Philipp Man spoke to Energy-Storage.news about the funding round and growing its capacity virtualisation and tolling platform.

A staggering total of 18GW/65GWh of large-scale BESS came online in China last month, accounting for a quarter of the total capacity deployed across the globe in 2025.

We hear from IPP Zelestra about its decision not to proceed in Italy’s MACSE auction and the auction’s wider implications on demand for private tolls.

IPP Neoen will provide Réseau de Transport d’Electricité (RTE) with grid-forming function from a BESS project in Brittany, France.