Macquarie and Institutional Funds Accelerate Acquisition of BESS Platforms across Europe

Europe's largest utilities were the first to invest in battery storage on the continent more than a decade ago. Enel, RWE and Iberdrola mobilised their corporate balance sheets and in-house expertise — engineering, project construction, electricity market trading and asset management — to develop and operate the first generation of storage projects. These deployments then responded to strategic and technical imperatives, not commercial ones.

Battery storage, an asset class now institutionalised

This pioneering dynamic has transformed battery storage into an established asset class, accessible to private institutional capital. In this context, infrastructure funds are acquiring and/or building battery energy storage systems (BESS) development platforms with advanced market access capabilities. By supporting agile and optimization-focused operators, these sponsors foster sector institutionalisation and faster scaling in still-fragmented markets.

These funds' operating model consists of taking stakes in developer platforms to access project pipelines. They then provide construction financing or "brown-to-green" type funding to materialise portfolio assets. Macquarie Asset Management illustrated this trend by acquiring Island Green Power in May 2025, a solar and BESS project developer based in the United Kingdom.

A model designed for fragmented European markets

The transaction conducted by Macquarie Asset Management is presented as a relevant example of a platform acquisition strategy in rapid expansion across Europe. Institutional funds thus seek to combine access to an established project pipeline and optimisation capabilities developed by specialised players. This approach enables them to deploy capital at scale in markets where commercial fragmentation makes rapid organic expansion difficult. It simultaneously redefines the energy storage value chain, with utilities gradually ceding ground to financial sponsors capable of industrialising deployment.