According to data released last week by Italian solar energy association Italia Solare, Italy's independent energy storage installations surged in the first half of 2024, with a connected capacity of approximately 650MW, almost 10 times that of the same period in 2023.

Matteo Coriglioni, head of Aurora Energy Research Italy, said official data showed that as of the end of March, Italy had approved more than 2GW of energy storage projects, with another 8GW in the approval process. Aurora Energy Research has a very broad pipeline of energy storage capacity, which is four times what has been approved. And the strong interest from investors existed even before the (2023) expo was announced.

Coriglioni was referring to TSO Terna’s Macse mechanism, which is designed to incentivize investment in utility-scale energy storage capacity through competitive auctions. Terna aims to award around 9GW (71GWh) of new grid-scale energy storage capacity by 2030 to increase grid flexibility as intermittent wind and PV generation capacity increases.

Since 2022, Italy has attracted strong interest from local and European investors in the energy storage business segment due to its structural needs, such as the lack of diversification in dispatchable technologies. With the phase-out of coal, the dispatchable fleet now relies almost entirely on natural gas, which becomes a structural weakness of the country. This, coupled with the need to integrate more renewable energy, makes Italy an attractive market for energy storage investment.

Fabio Zanellini, co-coordinator of Italia Solare’s energy storage and hydrogen working group, attributed the surge in standalone energy storage installations in the first half of 2024 to the connection of new capacity awarded in the capacity market auctions, due for delivery in 2024.

Zanellini said that if a facility is heavily dependent on revenue from the capacity market, it means that the market alone is not enough to justify its operation. The growth of the Italian energy storage industry seems to rely on the capacity market at present and on Macse in the future. At present, the pure business model does not seem to be viable, and hybrid or full capacity mechanisms like the Macse model are the main development direction.

Analysts believe that the upcoming auctions under the Macse framework (which have not yet been determined and arranged) have aroused great interest, and Italy may become a "testing ground" for this new mechanism, which is unique in Europe.

Source：https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/UE5bT55jYR-O45gpw98i8A