IPPs Zelestra, BNZ and ALFI have secured offtake and financing to hybridise solar projects with BESS across Spain, Italy, Portugal and Romania.
Zelestra, EDP sign PPA to hybridise operational solar PV with BESS in Spain
Independent power producer (IPP) Zelestra has signed a solar-and-storage power purchase agreement (PPA) with power firm EDP that will enable the addition of a battery energy storage system (BESS) to its operational 50MW Pizarroso solar plant in Cáceres, Spain.
It will add a 160MWh BESS to the PV plant which has been online since 2023. EDP is already the offtaker of the solar plant, and will use the BESS to enhance energy management and system flexibility.
Zelestra said it is the first PPA that enables the hybridisation of a solar PV plant with BESS in Spain. The two companies signed a solar-and-storage PPA in 2025, also claimed as the first of its kind, but for that both the solar and BESS were greenfield.
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It is part of a wider industry move away from solar-only PPAs towards hybridisation, because of falling PPA prices due to high curtailment and price cannibalisation. BESS enables solar PV plant operators to shift that production into the later evening and night hours, as well as provide services to the grid that solar PV would struggle to, like ancillary services and capacity markets (CM).
Nuveen-backed BNZ adding BESS to Southern Europe PV projects
BNZ, an IPP owned by investor Nuveen Infrastructure, has revealed plans to add 850MW of BESS capacity to its solar PV portfolio across Spain, Italy and Portugal. It is part of a move to energy management and hybridisation being ‘at the core of its business’, the firm said.
The company will initially deploy 530MW of BESS (duration not disclosed) across the three countries in 2026 and 2027. 260MW of that will be in Spain, 210MW in Italy and 60MW in Portugal.
Luis Selva, CEO of BNZ, said the shift in strategy will enable it to “…apply advanced energy management to transcend the role of a traditional developer and consolidate our position as a comprehensive strategic partner, capable of managing energy intelligently to optimise the performance and flexibility of our entire infrastructure”.
BNZ is new to storage but our colleagues at PV Tech have covered its solar PV activity extensively.
Nuveen managing director Isabel Rodriguez de Rivera recently discussed BESS bankability in Southern Europe with Energy-Storage.news, while her colleague Pierre Bartholin, head of power hedging, said that ‘standalone solar is not dead, but it is challenging’ at our publisher Solar Media’s Solar Finance Investment Europe 2026 in February.
ALFI Green Energy Fund and Kraftfeld Energy transact on Romanian solar-plus-storage project
In related news, investor Alfi Green Energy Fund and developer Kraftfeld Energy have closed a transaction to establish a 65:35% JV entity that is developing a 126MW solar, 200MWh BESS project in Romania. Construction is underway for commercial operations at the start of 2027.
The two companies have already secured project financing of €90 million (US$105 million) with Raiffeisen Bank International AG acting as agent.
Romania has quickly become one of the most active large-scale BESS markets in Europe, as recently covered by Energy-Storage.news. We’ve recently interviewed three IPPs building BESS in Romania for ESN Premium articles: MetaWealth, Econergy and R.Power (the latter two are video interviews taped at the Energy Storage Summit 2026 in February).
