Utility-scale storage developer Penso Power is venturing for the first time into Italy’s power market.
The company already has operations in Britain and Australia. Now it is allying with Milan-based battery developer ACL Energy and BW ESS, a global storage firm.
ACL will lead its international partners towards satisfying the peninsular’s burgeoning demand for grid-scale batteries, expected to be one of Europe’s most active. Italy’s transmission system operator Terna estimates that Italy will need around 27GW of energy storage capacity by 2033, accommodating a planned 120 GW+ of renewable generation connected to the Italian grid.
Each of the trio will become joint shareholders in three projects at development stage totalling 395MW connection capacity, and jointly fund them.
Penso Power CEO Richard Thwaites, pictured, said: “Italy is a priority market for us and the combination of skillsets that this joint venture brings together positions us to take a leading role in Italian energy storage.
“We have been working closely with BW ESS for several years and have benefitted from having them as a shareholder and project partner. We regard the ACL team very highly and are delighted to formalise our partnership with them.”
The 111MW project in Lombardy and the 97MW project in Puglia have been submitted to the Italian Ministry of Energy for approval. The 187MW project in Piemonte will be submitted for approval later this year.
ACL Energy managing partner Nicola Locascio said: “We are proud to enter this partnership with international players with such successful track record in the energy storage industry such as Penso Power and BW ESS”.
In October 2021 Penso and BW Group announced a joint venture agreement which commits BW to fund the build out of Penso Power’s UK project pipeline totalling more than 3GWh.
ACL Energy was advised by the law firm Eversheds Sutherland. BW ESS and Penso Power were advised by the law firm Bird & Bird.
