BESS owner-operators Return and BW ESS have financed and acquired large-scale projects in Spain and France, respectively, totalling just over 1GWh.Â
Return finances Spanish portfolio
Netherlands-headquartered Return has completed a €50 million (US$56 million) financing for three standalone battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in Spain.
The three projects in Bizkaia, in the Basque Country autonomous region, total 55MW/220MWh of capacity and will come online in 2027. They are located in Güeñes, Barakaldo and Lezama.
DNV acted as technical adviser to Return for the due diligence process of the financing, which claimed it is the largest standalone portfolio to reach financial close in Spain.
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Return signed a 10-year toll with power group Engie for the three projects in July this year.Â
They are separate to a 318MWh portfolio in Catalonia and Asturias acquired from developer-operator Aquila Clean Energy in March this year. But it sounds like the firm has been very busy buying in Spain as its pipeline in Basque Country alone has reached 352.5MW/1,400MWh.Â
The firm is headquartered and started its BESS activity in the Netherlands, where it recently inaugurated the country’s largest project at 100MW/200MWh.Â
Spain has a healthy pipeline of solar PV and will need 22.5GW of storage, 11.5GW of which is BESS, to balance this by 2030 according to its National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP).
Alongside the need for balancing renewables, new rules on data centres’ power sourcing could open up huge opportunities for BESS, according to a local developer in a recent guest blog for us.
Spain is also providing capex support to projects to get the market off the ground and has also launched a capacity market (CM).Â
BW ESS enters French market with 200MW/800MWh acquisition
Owner-operator BW ESS meanwhile has acquired two large-scale BESS projects in France from developer Recurrent Energy (part of solar PV firm Canadian Solar).
The projects total 100MW/400MWh each and are in Calvados and the Eastern Pyrenees regions. Both projects are in ‘advanced development’, though the firm didn’t say when it expected them online.
Their 4-hour duration reflects a wider move in the market to prepare for saturation of the country’s secondary reserve market, after which multi-market, energy-driven optimisation will be required. This was detailed in a recent ESN Premium interview with a local advisor.Â
The company this week put the UK’s largest BESS at 350MW/1,240MWh online. It is also one of the key players in the Swedish and Italian markets and recently launched its first project in Germany, a huge 1GW/5.7GWh project. Â
BW ESS CEO Erik Strømsø did a video interview with us at the Energy Storage Summit 2026 in London in February, discussing the company’s strategy and plans (ESN Premium access).
