ROME — Italy has declared an AI data centre integrated with a hybrid gravity-plus-battery storage hub of strategic national interest, granting Energy Vault's Digital Vault Sulcis project an accelerated approval pathway. The Council of Ministers, led by PM Giorgia Meloni, approved the designation in early August, with the company announcing it September 1.
Key facts:
- Project: Digital Vault Sulcis — a ~30MW edge AI data centre in Sulcis, Sardinia, expandable to 50-60MW of IT capacity and up to 100MW total site power, at the former Monte Sinn coal mine
- Investment:
€1.49 billion, part of a €25 billion FDI programme across seven Italian data centre projects; a second designation went to K2 Strategic's 400MW Milan hyperscale campus (€5.3 billion) - Hybrid storage: First commercial deployment of Energy Vault's EV0 modular pumped-hydro (gravity) technology paired with its B-VAULT BESS — per the EC case study, 20MW gravity storage + 80MW Li-ion BESS, 4-hour duration, controlled by VaultOS EMS
- Mine reuse: Site owned by Sardinian state coal company Carbosulcis; four existing mine shafts up to 500m deep host the pumped-storage system
- Phased build: Phase 1: 10MWp solar + 10MW Li-ion BESS; Phase 2: integrated storage + 10MW more solar; Phase 3: 3*4.2MW wind turbines
- Timeline: Construction targeted for 2028, commercial operation 2030; a special Government Commissioner will coordinate approvals
- Company momentum: Energy Vault raised full-year revenue guidance to US$270-310 million after Q2 results
WHY IT MATTERS
- Speed-to-power is the new race: Italy is using strategic designations to compress data-centre approval timelines — a policy answer to the grid pressures flagged by NERC's most urgent US reliability warning over AI-driven load swings.
- Coal mines become energy hubs: Monte Sinn joins a global wave of mine-to-storage conversions — the same logic as battery projects powering mines, but in reverse: the mine itself becomes the battery site.
- Hybrid storage goes commercial: Gravity/PHES paired with Li-ion is no longer a pilot story — EV0's first commercial deployment validates long-duration + short-duration stacking as a bankable architecture.
- C&I storage demand is data-centre driven: The same force lifting US C&I storage (per Q2 2026 deployment data) is now shaping European policy.
THE EXLIPORC PERSPECTIVE Every AI data centre and industrial site built today has the same requirement underneath: power that does not blink. The storage mix is evolving — long-duration gravity for hours, Li-ion for the seconds-to-minutes response — but lithium iron phosphate remains the workhorse of that second layer, in data centres, factories and homes alike. EXLIPORC's CE/UN38.3/IEC-certified LFP systems — the 16.58kWh 324Ah long-life model and the 20.48kWh 400Ah LVB20WTC — deliver the reliable, high-cycle storage layer European C&I and residential projects depend on, stocked in Poland and shipped EU-wide in 3-7 days. Contact us or visit www.exliporcpower.com.
Sources Energy-Storage.news / Energy Vault, September 1-2, 2026.
