RWE Renewables Australia has officially opened the 50MW/400MWh Limondale battery energy storage system (BESS) near Balranald in south-west New South Wales.

RWE has received official sign-off from the AEMO and Transgrid to operate Australia’s first 8-hour BESS at full capacity.

Large-scale BESS projects have been progressed in Italy, Romania, Germany, Poland, Denmark and elsewhere in Europe, totalling around 1GW under construction, 1GWh soon to be, and another 1GWh at earlier stages.

Power firm RWE has partnered with distributed battery storage firm Polarium for a battery-based virtual power plant (VPP) in Germany.

According to a representative from sodium-ion (Na-ion) battery energy storage system (BESS) startup Peak Energy, the company will pilot a 3.1MWh system at Energy firm RWE’s Eastern Wisconsin, US lab.

Energy firm RWE added 2GW to its US operating capacity in 2025, bringing its total operational capacity to nearly 13GW across the country.

A busy week of grid-scale BESS project news from Germany, with numerous development, project, optimisation and tolling partnerships announced.

Power firm RWE is about to start building a 400MW/800MWh BESS project in Germany, among the largest in the country to reach the construction stage. In related news, Kyon Energy has connected a 282MWh project to the grid, possibly the largest in the country to reach that milestone.

RWE Clean Energy has commissioned the Stoneridge Solar PV project in Texas, adding 200MW of solar PV and 100MW/200MWh BESS to its operational portfolio.

PJM has awarded 23 battery energy storage system (BESS) resources, totalling 2.2GW, with interconnection agreements (IAs) in its first transition cycle (TC1) of the reformed interconnection process.