Italy's battery gold rush: Energy storage creates a new market

The recent growth in renewable energy has created a new market for energy storage systems. Italy is at the forefront of this "battery gold rush", with 300 GW of connection requests for high- and extra-high-voltage storage systems submitted to Terna by the end of 2025. However, only 6.8 GW of projects have been approved and are ready to begin construction.

The demand for storage systems is driven by the fact that renewable energy sources like sun and wind produce energy intermittently, leading to periods of oversupply and negative pricing on the wholesale market. BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems) can absorb this surplus energy and feed it back into the grid later, making them strategically important.

Italy's 300 GW of connection requests is not just about current projects, but also represents a substantial advance booking for future electricity systems. This underscores the need for faster investment and grid connection speeds, as Ursula von der Leyen emphasized in her State of the Union address.

Germany is similarly experiencing a battery rush, with 18,158 applications for large storage systems received in 2025 alone, amounting to 573.5 GW. However, only 3.6 GW of projects are operational at medium voltage and above.

The financing landscape for storage systems is rapidly evolving. Kyon Energy, a German company, exemplifies this shift. In 2024, TotalEnergies bought Kyon for €90 million and later sold a 50% stake in eleven Kyon projects to Allianz Global Investors, raising €440 million in project financing.

To tackle the issue of speculative applications and projects, the European Commission has introduced guidelines and countermeasures, including criteria linked to project maturity, deadlines, penalties, and financial deposits. Italy has also started implementing reforms to address grid saturation, such as the Bollette decree of February 2026, which requires definitive allocation of capacity to authorized projects.