The chart tracks weekly annualised revenues for the best-performing ~4-hour BESS asset in North Italy, split by market segment, from end-2024 to June 2026.
Late 2024 and the first part of 2025 were a strong period, driven mainly by ample MSD opportunities: annualised revenues for a 4hr BESS often went above 150 €/kW, with peaks of over 250 €/kW. Revenues then weakened from summer 2025 to early 2026, as MSD opportunities narrowed and Day-Ahead volatility stayed subdued, constraining arbitrage. During this period, best-performing margins often remained below 100 €/kW, with some weeks even below 50 €/kW for the same BESS asset category.
From March 2026, revenues recovered sharply as Day-Ahead volatility strengthened materially, driven by higher gas prices linked to the Middle East crisis, and by spring solar generation peaks combined with lower demand, which pushed midday prices down and widened the daily Day-Ahead spread. Best-performing 4hr BESS annualised revenues returned to consistently above 150 €/kW. Note that June is not yet complete for Balancing Market and Picasso, so recent months are slightly underrepresented in the chart; the Riserva Secondaria segment has become a very limited revenue source since Picasso’s reintegration of Italy in November 2025.
These takeaways comes with a caveat. BESS optimisation in Italy is still heavily concentrated in a single dominant player: with the rollout of 2024 Capacity Market-backed capacity, Enel has emerged as the leading optimiser, controlling more than 90% of total Italian BESS capacity. Individual asset performance is therefore not yet representative of BESS asset class intrinsic value, as most of the assets are managed within the largest Italian power portfolio optimisation strategy.
Even with delays, CM 2024 capacity is now online, deployed mainly in the North, Centre-South and Sardinia zones. Capacity backed by the most recent CM contracts has only just started to come through, with the first Centre-South asset backed by CM 2026 recently entering operation. The next major round of capacity deployment will start across 2027-2028, with CM MACSE-backed assets reaching COD in the South and CM 2027-backed assets in the North.
