Italian energy company Redelfi S.p.A has agreed a joint venture with investment firm WRM Group to develop four data centers in Italy.

Redelfi said that the deal will further its understanding of how best to colocate battery energy storage systems (BESS) with data centers, an increasingly popular method of mitigating energy costs and grid instability for the latter facilities.

“Redelfi's application of structured knowledge transfer processes on infrastructure and nationwide connectivity will optimize the design and integration of BESS systems and data centers, resulting in operational efficiency benefits,” said the company. DCD reached out to both Redelfi and WRM Group for comment.

Typically comprised of rows upon rows of lithium-ion batteries, BESS units can provide hundreds of megawatts of power storage for several hours at a time. Their colocation with data centers can offer several advantages to operators, including not only the provision of an uninterrupted power supply in advance of reliance on generators should the connection to the grid be cut, but also the addition of an asset on-site that can profitably discharge power into the wider network when power supply needs at the data center are low. Though relatively few data center operators have pursued colocation so far, demand for BESS systems overall remains high, with McKinsey estimating that the global market could grow to $150 billion by 2030.

A BESS specialist, Redelfi's partnership with WRM Group marks the former’s first foray into the data center sector. The deal will create a dedicated ‘NewCo’ under Italian law to oversee the partnership, 51 percent of which will be owned by Redelfi, which also confirmed that it would manage the sites.

Additionally, said the firm, the agreement would “provide for compensation to Redelfi upon reaching specific development milestones for each data center project, upon completion of the corresponding technical and operational activities. The Company is participating in the transaction both as a shareholder and as a developer.”

The agreement is not the first such partnership between Redelfi and WRM Group. In 2024, the firm embarked on a similar joint venture with the latter’s subsidiary Flash to create the newco ‘Bright Storage,’ dedicated to the development of a standalone BESS. Since then, the Milan-headquartered Redelfi has exited its investments in other renewable energy businesses to commit itself wholeheartedly to the battery energy storage market. Its latest deal with WRM Group, said its chairman Davide Sommariva, represented an “extension of our industrial model, based on the development of strategic and innovative infrastructures, from energy to digital.”

Learn more about the data center market in Italy and Southern Europe, and meet with other executives and experts from the region at the DCN Milan event later this year