RWE started construction of the RWE Ragusa battery on 10 November 2026, its first battery energy storage system in Italy. The lithium ion system in Ragusa, Sicily, is rated at 62.5 MW and 262.5 MWh, and RWE plans commissioning at the end of 2027.
What the RWE Ragusa battery will do
The system uses 42 battery containers and can deliver its maximum output for four hours. RWE says it will provide balancing energy and grid forming services, including instantaneous reserve, which is the inertia that rotating plants have traditionally supplied. RWE will build the grid connection, including a high voltage transformer to the 150 kV network.
RWE’s chief executive for renewables in Europe and Australia, Sopna Sury, said the battery can cover the evening peak demand of around 21,000 households for four hours. At 62.5 MW over four hours that is 250 MWh, or about 11.9 kWh per household, an average of about 3 kW each (ENB calculation). The energy rating of 262.5 MWh is 4.2 times the power rating, and each of the 42 containers holds about 6.25 MWh on average.
Where the RWE Ragusa battery sits in the portfolio
RWE operates about 670 MW of wind and solar in Italy, in 18 onshore wind farms, one solar plant and three agrivoltaic plants, with about 200 MW under construction. Globally it operates about 1.7 GW of batteries and has about 3 GW under construction. The Ragusa battery is 9% of its Italian generation capacity and about 2% of its battery capacity under construction (ENB calculation).
Italy is a market where battery projects are only now moving to construction at scale, and neighbouring Portugal opened grid capacity to storage this week, as covered in ENB reporting on the Portuguese capacity offer.
Italy’s transmission system operator, Terna, publishes its electricity dispatching information for storage on its website.
What RWE has not disclosed
The release gives no investment cost, no battery supplier, no contractors, no revenue or offtake model and no information on support schemes. It also gives no connection date. Those are the figures that would show how the RWE Ragusa battery earns its return, and more storage coverage is in the ENB energy storage section.
The dated check is commissioning at the end of 2027, about 13 months after the start of construction (ENB calculation).
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