A New Polis white paper prepared in cooperation with E3 International
How much electricity a country produces is no longer enough to understand whether it can support the next wave of energy-intensive investment.
For a data centre, battery factory or another large electricity consumer, the practical questions are different: Where can I connect 100 MW? How long will it take? What will it cost?
Beyond Megawatts examines eight electricity systems across the Balkans to understand how generation, grid capacity and flexibility translate into power that a new investor can actually access and use.
About the white paper
Renewable generation is expanding across Southeast Europe, storage projects are entering the system and transmission networks are being reinforced. Yet available power at a specific location remains difficult to infer from national energy statistics.
Beyond Megawatts looks beyond installed capacity to examine a more practical measure of energy competitiveness: how much electricity can actually be made available to a large new consumer, where, on what terms and within what timeframe.
The analysis covers Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, focusing on generation, transmission infrastructure, connection conditions, grid transparency and the growing role of flexibility.
Key findings
Installed MW are not usable MW.
Grid location, connection conditions and flexibility determine what a new consumer can actually access.
Grid transparency remains uneven.
Public visibility of capacity, connection processes and queues varies substantially across the region.
Time-to-power is still difficult to assess.
Comparable end-to-end timelines for large new loads are generally unavailable.
Connection costs are not directly comparable.
Projects face different combinations of connection charges and network-reinforcement costs.
Flexibility increasingly matters.
Storage is growing rapidly, but operational capacity remains very different from announced, licensed or connected pipelines.
From energy capacity to energy competitiveness
The next phase of energy competition in the Balkans will be shaped not only by who builds the most generation, but by which systems can make that power accessible to new demand.
For investors, the increasingly important question is therefore not simply how many megawatts a country can report, but how many can be made usable for the next major consumer, and how clearly and predictably that capacity can be identified before an investment decision is made.
Publication details
Beyond Megawatts: Grid Readiness and Energy Competitiveness in the Balkans
White Paper | September 2026
Published by New Polis
Prepared in cooperation with E3 International
