BESS owner-operator BW ESS has launched construction on its second large-scale project in Italy in the space of a month, while developers Galileo and Aura Power have progressed portfolios in the country. 

A roundup of some of the best user-posted views, analysis and reveals from across the energy storage community in the past week.

What is the future for the grid-scale energy storage market in Italy, now that the dust has settled from the country’s long-awaited MACSE auction for BESS?

European IPP R.Power’s head of BESS and CCO sat down with Energy-Storage.news at the Energy Storage Summit 2026 last month for a video interview to discuss the firm’s storage activity and approach to procuring technology.

Allianz GI, Luxcara and Return have acquired BESS projects and portfolios in Germany, Finland and Spain; Low Carbon, OX2, Cero Generation and Revera have taken FIDs on projects in Poland, Finland and the UK; and NHOA Energy has received a 600MWh order in Italy. All in all, the projects total at least 3.7GWh of capacity.

We hear from IPP Zelestra about its decision not to proceed in Italy’s MACSE auction and the auction’s wider implications on demand for private tolls.

We caught up with developer and IPP Greenvolt Power’s head of storage Antonio Montoto Rojo about the recent MACSE auction in Italy, where it won a contract for a 75MW BESS.

The low prices and strict operational requirements in Italy’s recent MACSE auction for BESS have brought asset management and operational execution into the spotlight.

The low level of the MACSE tariffs in Italy took everyone by surprise and will require careful asset management, but their relative value and those of the capacity market (CM) should increase over time. 

We gather the industry reaction to the MACSE auction in Italy, which saw TSO Terna procure 10GWh of long-term capacity at what most agreed are extremely low prices.