A trio of European BESS announcements, with Merus Power securing an order in Finland and IPPs Metlen and Aquila Clean Energy EMEA winning government financial support for projects in Italy and Portugal respectively.
The new items came in the same week that our publisher Solar Media put on the Energy Storage Summit EU 2025 in London (17-19 February). Executives from the companies and markets in question attended and spoke both onstage and to our editorial team at the event, providing additional details and analysis beyond the headlines.
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Merus Power to provide Ardian fund with 30MWh BESS
Power solutions firm Merus Power has signed an agreement with a holding company of the Ardian Clean Energy Evergreen Fund (ACEEF), managed by the global private equity firm Ardian, for a 30MW/30MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project in Finland.
The value of the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to Merus Power is €13 million (US$13.6 million) and the project will be completed in spring 2026. It will be built in Kaunola, Riihimäki and will mainly serve as a fast grid balancing unit in TSO Fingrid’s reserve markets.
This is the second BESS project that Merus Power will provide for Ardian in Finland, following a 38MW/40MWh system deployed last year. At last year’s Summit event, Energy-Storage.news sat down to discuss the project and partnership with Merus’ sales director Markus Ovaskainen and Aleksi Lumijärvi, M&A director for eNordic, the investment manager in the region for Ardian – read that interview here (Premium access).
Merus Power buys BESS units and battery management systems (BMS) from established suppliers but has its own power conversion system (PCS) technology and energy management system (EMS) software and trading capabilities, which it provides with the projects to Ardian.
Ovaskainen spoke on ‘The Big Debate: Where are the Hottest European Storage Markets?’ panel discussion on Day One of this year’s event.
He told the audience that, while everyone is excited about the bigger markets like Germany, UK and Italy, the Nordics shouldn’t be overlooked because they present a good revenue opportunity and it’s relatively easy to get projects going. They are still a way off from saturation, although they are based on relatively shallow ancillary services markets, he added.
See more recent coverage of the energy storage market in Finland here.
Metlen secures long-term contracts for BESS in Italy
Metallurgy and renewables IPP firm Metlen Energy & Metals (formerly Mytilineos) has secured capacity market (CM) contracts for two BESS projects for 2025 and 2026.
The firm has secured 15-year CM contracts for the 25MW/75MWh ‘Erchie Storage’ BESS project and the 25MW/75MWh ‘San Severo Storage’ BESS project, both in the Apulia (Puglia) region. Erchie won in the 2025 CM procedure while San Severo’s win was in the 2026 CM procedure. The firm also won CM contracts in the 2024 auction and a Fast Reserve Pilot project, operational since 2024.
Italy released the results of its 2026 CM auction in January 2025, awarding 42.8GW of derated capacity.
The country is one of the most exciting for energy storage investment in Europe, with a unique auction designed for grid-scale storage set to be finalised this year at which point gigawatts of projects should proceed with construction.
Consultancy Timera Energy’s Steven Coppack, who was also a speaker at the Summit event this year, told Energy-Storage.news last week that its unique characteristics should open it up to forms of capital so far excluded from storage (Premium access).
Aquila wins grant support for BESS projects in Portugal
Renewables IPP Aquila Clean Energy EMEA has revealed it had two projects among the 500MW of winning BESS in a recent capex support scheme auction in Portugal. The BESS auction (Investimento RP-C21-i08 – Flexibilidade da Rede e Armazenamento) awarded capex grants amounting to 20% of total investment for BESS co-located with renewables.
Aquila won support for two 20MW/40MWh BESS units, co-located with the 48MWp Barcos solar PV plant and the 27MWp Rio Seco PV plant.
Manuel Fonseca e Silva, head of development and construction in Portugal for Aquila, said: “This achievement is a major milestone for our operations in Portugal, as these are our first BESS projects in the country that we have developed in-house using our extensive BESS expertise across Europe. We look forward to constructing them and contributing to Portugal’s decarbonisation goals.”
However, consultancy and investment services firm Ikigai Capital’s COO Helena Anderson said on a panel discussion at the Summit event that the grant programme was challenging and that Ikigai, and other winners, had to pull out after winning grants.
But another delegate said that although the programme did have some strict conditions around charging from the grid versus the co-located renewables, this was well compensated by the grant itself and that Portugal was a fundamentally attractive market.
