In this news roundup, Grenergy, MaxSolar and Saft, and Amarenco have made significant advancements on BESS projects in Spain, Germany, and France.

Brookfield has agreed to acquire battery storage developer-operator Aypa Power at an enterprise value of ~US$7 billion.

Germany will have its first capacity market (CM) auction in September this year, following confirmation from the country’s energy regulator.

System integrator and project developer ON.Energy and AI data centre infrastructure developer Crusoe have partnered to deploy 5GW of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) technology across multiple US hyperscale campuses.

Spain has awarded €165 million to seven pumped hydro storage projects totalling around 2.1GW/21GWh, while Portugal has set a target of 1.4GW of new pumped hydro capacity by 2040.

Tesla’s energy storage deployments rebounded in the second quarter of this year, but factors, including a decline in ASPs, had a significant impact on the company’s energy division’s gross margins.

The Clean Energy Investor Group (CEIG) has published a report calling on the Australian government to prioritise consistent and timely implementation of the reformed Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

Activity in Italy’s grid-scale market is accelerating, with Sonnedix and the Strioga Family Foundation acquiring projects totalling over 1GWh combined, while BNZ and RWE have ordered BESS from Sungrow and LONGi respectively totalling 540MWh.

The Maine, US Department of Energy Resources (DOER) announced plans for the state’s first competitive energy storage solicitation up to 360MW.

Canadian electric utility BC Hydro and the province of British Columbia (BC) are advancing the first major battery energy storage system (BESS) project in the province.