Wollerau, 04 March 2026
Smartenergy and ABB are collaborating on a strategic initiative to accelerate, de-risk and scale renewable and hydrogen projects across Southern Europe. The collaboration brings together Smartenergy’s project development, financing expertise and early-stage pipeline with ABB’s global leadership in electrification, automation and digital technologies, creating a powerful platform aimed at delivering integrated, bankable and future-ready energy infrastructure.
Southern Europe is emerging as one of Europe’s most dynamic regions for the next phase of the energy transition, driven by exceptional solar resources, rapidly growing demand for battery energy storage systems (BESS), and increasing momentum in renewables-to-hydrogen projects and renewables-to-AI applications. At the same time, the market is evolving beyond stand-alone renewable assets toward fully integrated energy ecosystems that combine generation, storage, grid integration, automation and hydrogen production. This strategic collaboration is designed to respond to that shift and enable scalable, multi-technology renewable platforms. A joint approach from the planning phase of such assets will optimize efficiency, resilience, and quality through digital twin simulations, end-to-end asset digitalization with the appropriate selection of equipment and systems, and the application of AI-driven intelligence for both planning and operations.
Through this collaboration, Smartenergy and ABB will cooperate from the earliest stages of project development to align technical design, financing structures and implementation strategies. Early involvement of both development and technology collaborators aims to reduce execution risks, enhance bankability and accelerate time to market. The collaboration also supports the creation of a replicable model for sustainable, intelligent energy infrastructure that can be deployed across multiple projects and geographies.
Smartenergy contributes with a strong pipeline of renewable and hydrogen projects, extensive experience in project development and permitting, and access to a well-established investor network. ABB complements this with its technology leadership in power electronics, grid connection, energy management systems, automation and digital solutions that are critical for integrating solar, BESS and hydrogen assets into reliable and efficient energy systems. Together, Smartenergy and ABB combine financing enablement and technical excellence to create a strong foundation for de-risking and accelerating project execution.
“Our collaboration with Smartenergy will accelerate the deployment of resilient technical solutions in clean-energy projects across Southern Europe.” said Daniel Gerber, Business Line Manager Renewable Power at ABB.
“By combining ABB’s expertise and product portfolio with Smartenergy’s growing pipeline in Power-to-X projects at scale, we can build together future-proof infrastructure for the growing demand.”
“Collaborating with ABB creates strong synergies and reinforces our mission to accelerate the energy transition across Europe and MENA through the development of large-scale, integrated renewable and hydrogen platforms,” said Horst H. Mahmoudi, CEO & Executive Chairman of Smartenergy. “By combining our development and financing expertise with ABB’s technological excellence, we can significantly reduce project risk, accelerate execution, and deliver highly bankable projects that advance decarbonisation goals and strengthen long-term energy security.”
The collaboration will initially focus on a joint pipeline of solar, renewable-to-hydrogen and eSAF projects in Spain and Portugal, with the ambition to expand into broader multi-technology energy platforms, including solutions that support grid stability and emerging power demand from new industrial and digital applications. The first eSAF and renewable-to-hydrogen projects alone have a combined budget of EUR 4-5 billion for which the ABB technology plays a major enabling role. By aligning financing capabilities with technical leadership, Smartenergy and ABB aim to set a new benchmark for the development of scalable, resilient and intelligent energy infrastructure.