Italy Draws Two More BESS Buyers as Sunotec Stacks Up Operational Hours in Bulgaria

Three separate announcements landed this week from Europe's BESS market - two in Italy, one in Bulgaria - and together they sketch a picture of a continent where the acquisition phase is accelerating faster than the commissioning phase. That gap matters for anyone trying to read the revenue signal.

Encavis: First BESS, Familiar Market

German IPP Encavis has acquired its first utility-scale standalone battery energy storage system in Italy - a 65 MW/260 MWh project in Ceprano, in the Lazio region south of Rome^[1]. Commissioning is scheduled for 2028^[1].

The seller is ReFeel New Energy, an Italian developer backed by Gresham House Europe^[1]. The price was not disclosed.

Italy is one of Encavis' most important growth and investment markets. The company already operates a photovoltaic portfolio there with an installed capacity of around 420 MW, making it one of the country's leading independent solar power producers. The Ceprano project is the storage layer being added to that existing solar base - not a standalone merchant play. The project forms part of Encavis' strategic evolution towards an integrated platform combining renewable power generation, battery storage and market-based optimisation.

At four hours of duration, the 65 MW/260 MWh configuration is squarely in the range that Italy's MACSE mechanism is designed to reward. Italy's capacity market framework, anchored by the MACSE mechanism, offers developers 15-year subsidies and long-term contracts for availability. Whether Encavis has secured a MACSE contract for Ceprano - or is planning to participate in a future auction round - has not been confirmed. That distinction matters: a contracted project and a project banking on future auction success are very different risk profiles.

In early 2026, Encavis also secured around 3.7 TWh under Italy's Energy Release 2.0 programme - more than 16% of the total volume and one of the largest allocations under the programme. That offtake position gives the company a credible industrial customer base in Italy, and Ceprano is a logical complement to it.

OX2: 200 MW/800 MWh from Hanwha, Both in Puglia

Sweden's OX2 has acquired two standalone 100 MW/400 MWh BESS projects in Italy's Puglia region from Hanwha Energy Europe, for a combined 200 MW/800 MWh^[1]. Construction is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2027, with commercial operations expected by the end of 2028.

Both are four-hour assets, located in Lecce province^[1]. Puglia is not an accident - MACSE eligibility is drawing most volume toward Southern Italy, especially Puglia and Sicily. The region's limited interconnection with the north, combined with high solar penetration, creates the price spread that makes four-hour storage commercially attractive.

OX2 entered the Italian market in 2021 and has since built a 1.5 GW renewable energy development pipeline in the country, comprising about 750 MW of solar, 650 MW of standalone battery storage and 100 MW of onshore wind. The Hanwha acquisition adds 200 MW of that 650 MW BESS pipeline in one transaction. The company said about 98% of its solar portfolio consists of agrivoltaic projects.

The seller, Hanwha Energy Europe, was advised by Gitti and Partners and L&B Partners; OX2 by Green Horse Legal Advisory and BDO^[1]. The transaction structure - a developer-to-developer sale of ready-to-build or late-stage development assets - is increasingly standard in Italy's BESS market, where permitting is the scarce resource and construction capital is not.

Why Italy Is Pulling This Volume

The market context explains the deal flow. Italy has a national target of 22.5 GW of storage capacity by 2030. Against that, Italy started 2023 with less than 100 MW of operational battery capacity; by the end of 2025, installed capacity surpassed 1.9 GW. The gap between current installed capacity and the 2030 target is enormous, and developers know it.

Italy ranks among the top three European markets for battery energy storage systems attractiveness, alongside Germany and Great Britain, supported by diverse routes-to-market and robust storage procurement targets. The MACSE mechanism is the primary pull factor for utility-scale projects, but the merchant case is also strengthening as solar penetration drives midday price cannibalisation and creates arbitrage opportunity.

Revenue simulations from market participants suggest that cross-market optimisation - combining wholesale arbitrage with ancillary services - can generate meaningfully higher returns than single-market strategies in Italy^[1]. That is the commercial logic behind both the Encavis and OX2 moves: acquire now, commission in 2028, and participate in a market that is still in early price-discovery.

Sunotec's Bulgarian Accumulation

The third story is operationally different - and arguably more instructive.

Sunotec has commissioned a 150 MW/379 MWh BESS near Brusartsi in northwestern Bulgaria, its second operational facility in the country^[1]. The site is part of Sunotec's operational collaboration with optimisation and energy trading firm GEN-I, building on the 126 MWh BESS in Byala Slatina, which it commissioned last month.

The Brusartsi project runs at approximately 2.5 hours of duration - shorter than the Italian assets above, which reflects a different market structure. Bulgaria's balancing and ancillary service markets reward faster-cycling assets. GEN-I provides commercial management for both operational assets, connecting them to electricity and balancing markets and optimising performance. That is a clean division of labour: Sunotec builds and integrates, GEN-I optimises. Whether the revenue split justifies that structure depends on what GEN-I is actually extracting from the Bulgarian markets - a number neither company has disclosed.

Sunotec said the two companies plan to bring a further nine BESS projects - 95 MW/782 MWh of capacity - online in Bulgaria over the next 12 months. That is a significant pipeline for a single integrator in a single country. The implied average project size across those nine assets is roughly 10 MW/87 MWh - smaller, faster-to-build projects that can be stacked under Bulgaria's RESTORE subsidy programme.

Bulgaria has been a focus market for Sunotec following a strategic deal it struck last year with Chinese PV inverter and BESS producer Sungrow. The 2.4 GWh deal will see Sungrow supply BESS to Sunotec projects across Europe, including in Bulgaria. That supply agreement is the hardware backbone of the entire Bulgarian rollout.

Over the past three years, Bulgaria has transformed from a marginal player to the most dynamic battery energy storage market in Europe, driven by targeted and effective support measures. Installed and contracted capacity has already surpassed the country's 2030 policy target by four years. That is a remarkable trajectory - and it is almost entirely a function of RESTORE's subsidy design rather than merchant revenue signals. When the subsidy programme winds down, the question of whether Bulgarian BESS assets can sustain themselves on market revenues alone will become pressing.

The Pattern Across All Three

What connects Encavis in Lazio, OX2 in Puglia, and Sunotec in Brusartsi is the same underlying logic: acquire or build now, while permitting and subsidy windows are open, and commission into a market that will be materially tighter by 2028.

The Italian acquisitions are development-stage bets - neither Ceprano nor the Puglia projects will generate a single MWh until 2028 at the earliest. The Bulgarian commissioning is the more grounded data point: steel in the ground, GEN-I on the optimisation desk, and a second asset live within a month of the first. That operational cadence is what separates a pipeline story from a revenue story.