Return said it builds on an existing partnership in Germany, although it hasn’t previously officially announced a toll with Engie there.

Engie is deploying its own large-scale BESS projects globally, including in the US, Chile and across Europe, but is also a major provider of tolls. It recently agreed a toll with BESS platform Flower in Germany covering 657MWh of capacity and then announced one with developer Ignis in Spain for a similar amount.

The toll with Ignis is noteworthy as it only gives Engie the right to the BESS’ dispatch in the day-ahead and intraday market, while Ignis will remain responsible for operating the BESS in balancing services (ancillary services).

Large-scale BESS activity in Spain has picked up since the Iberian blackout in Spring 2025. Notably, the government has accelerated its rollout of EU-backed grants for energy storage, passed a grid resilience decree, and launched a capacity market (CM).

Power firm EnBW will procure 300MW of capacity from a 500MW/2,000MWh BESS that IPP Zelestra will build and own in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy.

The companies have agreed the toll for 60% of the project’s capacity for an unspecified period, only calling it ‘long-term’. Construction will start in 2027 for commercial operation in 2028.

It appears to be the same project that the two companies announced they had agreed a toll for, back in September 2025, based on location and timeline. But at the time they only said it could cover ‘up to 2GWh’ of capacity, so presumably the exact size of the deal was still being negotiated.

The project is not one of the dozen or so that won long-term revenue contracts from Italy’s TSO Terna in the MACSE auction. MACSE is Terna’s way of ensuring there is enough storage to balance solar generation in the south of Italy.

Zelestra’s Italy CEO Eliano Russo discussed the auction, why the company decided not to proceed in it, and what implications it would have for the wider offtake space in an interview with us for the Energy Storage Report 2026, which you can access here.

The IPP has also announced long-term offtake deals for its solar-plus-storage projects in Spain.

BKW has also been the offtaker for Zelestra’s solar projects in Italy, including the Ginosa and Bellomo projects, the latter under construction (pictured above).

In this news roundup, Grenergy, MaxSolar and Saft, and Amarenco have made significant advancements on BESS projects in Spain, Germany, and France.

Germany will have its first capacity market (CM) auction in September this year, following confirmation from the country’s energy regulator.

Spain has awarded €165 million to seven pumped hydro storage projects totalling around 2.1GW/21GWh, while Portugal has set a target of 1.4GW of new pumped hydro capacity by 2040.

Activity in Italy’s grid-scale market is accelerating, with Sonnedix and the Strioga Family Foundation acquiring projects totalling over 1GWh combined, while BNZ and RWE have ordered BESS from Sungrow and LONGi respectively totalling 540MWh.

With the Energy Storage Awards 2026 entry deadline less than two months away, we speak to four judges to hear what they are looking for from successful entrants.