Multinational power firm Engie has acquired two large-scale BESS projects in Spain, paired with synchronous condensers and has launched construction on a BESS in France.
Spain
The company has acquired two battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in Spain totalling 278MW/1.1GWh of capacity. The 4-hour systems are in Andalusia, in Álora (78MW/312MWh of capacity) and Tarifa (200MW/800MWh) and are, Engie claimed, the largest under development in the country.
They are also equipped with synchronous condensers, which provide inertia and and reactive power services. Such services have historically been providing by the spinning turbines of legacy gas and thermal plants, and as such new, clean technologies are needed to replace them as they are phased out.
BESS and modern inverters can also provide these capabilities, although recent auctions for such services in the UK saw them lose out against both legacy plants and synchronous condensers.
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Construction on Engie’s two Spain projects will begin in 2027, with commissioning over the course of 2028.
Some posit that more modern grid-forming technology on the grid would have helped Spain and Portugal prevent or better have mitigated the blackout which covered virtually the whole Iberian peninsula in spring last year.
IPPs BNZ and Zelestra this week announced plans to add BESS to solar PV plants in Spain.
France
Meanwhile in France, Engie has launched construction on its first BESS in the country, with a capacity of 110MW/220MWh. The project is in Castelnau d’Aude, in the Aude department in southern France, and will be commissioned in summer 2027. It builds on the company’s 5.3GW of installed wind and solar capacity in the country.
It is the latest in a recent flurry of French grid-scale BESS activity, with IPPs Neoen, Harmony Energy and Amarenco all launching construction on projects announced in the past month.
Engie is headquartered in Paris but active globally, including in Europe, North America and South America, including Chile where it commissioned the Capricornio BESS in mid-2025 (pictured above). See all coverage of the company’s energy storage activity here.
