Storage systems, operators prepare for Terna's first auction

The appointment is for 30 September, the day of Terna's first auction for the Macse (storage futures market), the competitive mechanism through which our system operator will procure 10 GWh of storage capacity: the estimated national requirement for 2028, the year in which the new storage capacity will be delivered. There has already been an initial application phase, completed in June, and now it is time for projects to be entered on the dedicated portal by 17 July.

The supply will concern electrochemical battery systems, especially in the southern regions: Terna indicates a need for a maximum of 3 GWh in the Centre-South, a maximum of 7 GWh for the South and Calabria, a minimum of 0.5 and a maximum of 1.5 GW for Sicily, and a minimum of 0.5 and a maximum of 1 GW for Sardinia.

Alongside the capacity market, with which again through auctions Terna supplies flexibility - usable in case of need - for the electricity system by paying selected plants a fee, the Macse is a more structural instrument: the storage systems that win the auctions will serve to stabilise the grid and will be remunerated for this. By storing the energy produced from renewable sources, they will reduce phenomena such as overgeneration, congestion and curtailment, i.e. the cutting off of renewable production, contributing to the adequacy and security of the electricity system, also by covering demand during high load hours or in situations of low production from renewable sources, such as evenings.

In view, therefore, of the Macse, an initiative that has no parallel in other European countries and ensures constant cash flows, operators, both Italian and international, have begun to move around sniffing out opportunities in projects that are often not yet built. The precious currency here is the progress of the authorisation process. While for delivery, as mentioned, the target year is 2028.

A big deal in our country regarding energy storage via batteries is the one recently announced by ContourGlobal, an international energy producer based in Italy and controlled by the Kkr fund, which has secured 1.6 GW of projects. Not all of them will go to the Macse, but the scale is impressive. ContourGlobal has closed two deals: the first by acquiring from the pan-European Galileo platform (created in 2020 by Ingmar Wilhelm with Infratil Europe, Mgif european renewables, Guardians of New Zealand superannuation, Commonwealth superannuation corporation) a 98 MW project in Campania. The second by acquiring a 1.5 GW portfolio from Vexuvo (an independent Italian energy producer): three projects (totalling 260 MW) in Southern Italy are at an advanced authorisation stage and eligible for the first Macse auction. The portfolio, the group announced in a note, 'could reach over 9 GWh of storage capacity, with entry into operation starting in 2028'. The order of magnitude of the investment in this first phase, sources said, is between EUR 300 and 350 million.