Solar and storage installer Lemon Sistemi and investor Volt ESG have signed a deal to develop a battery energy storage system (BESS) project in Italy, the latest substantial BESS development in the country.
The two companies have signed a contract for the development of 2GW of BESS projects, mainly in southern Italy and its nearby major islands.
Lemon Sistemi designs, supplies and installs photovoltaic and storage systems and provides energy efficiency solutions, mainly in the commercial and industrial (C&I) sector to-date. It will identify land for projects, lay the administrative groundwork, and handle the grid connection process to prepare the projects for ready-to-build (RTB) status.
The projects will each have a minimum capacity of 100MW and the total value of the agreement with Volt ESG SRL is €20 million, implying Lemon Sistemi will receive a development premium of €10,000 per MW of projects successfully transacted on.
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Volt ESG is the main shareholder of Fucino Green, a renewable energy investor in Italy.
In the announcement of the deal, the companies cited the desire by the transmission system operator (TSO) in Italy, Terna, to deploy energy storage to ensure the smooth integration of the country’s growing renewable energy pipeline.
Maria Laura Spagnolo, president and co-CEO of Lemon Sistemi, commented: “We are very pleased to announce the signing of this contract, which is fully in line with the initiatives dedicated to the capacity market and launches us into the great challenge of the energy transition.”
The capacity market alluded to is one that was run by Terna last year and saw over 1GW of BESS projects awarded contracts, kickstarting the market. Energy-Storage.news did a deep-dive into the Italian market for a recent edition of Solar Media’s quarterly journal PV Tech Power.
With Terna in the midst of forming a market mechanism to run large-scale auctions for BESS to provide load-shifting services in the wholesale market, developers and independent power producers (IPPs) have been busy announcing pipelines and development agreements in Italy.
This week, Matrix Renewables bought a 410MW/3,280MWh portfolio from development partner Emeren while Altea Green Power announced earlier this month it was in talks to sell a set of four projects totalling 1GW to two international investors.
Prior to these, GW-scale BESS development agreements were stuck by Redelfi and WRM, and Eku Energy and Renera, while Field, Aura Power and SUSI Partners are all entering the market too.
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