Southeast Europe is developing merchant and state-backed battery-storage projects, with the financing model depending on market depth and the value storage provides to the power system. Romania’s 127 MW / 254 MWh Scornicesti project is a merchant battery, while North Macedonia and Montenegro are pursuing state-backed or strategic-partner structures.
The standalone Scornicesti battery is financed on a non-recourse basis through an EBRD package supported by InvestEU. Its bankability depends on optimisation, access to markets and risk allocation rather than a long-term fixed-price power contract.
In North Macedonia, the state-backed Bitola project is planned at 100 MW / 400 MWh and is estimated to cost 98 million euros. Its financing structure relies on sovereign guarantees and concessional finance, with participation from the EBRD, KfW, climate finance and the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF) envisaged.
Bitola’s case also includes system benefits from balancing, reducing curtailment and improving reliability. These benefits are relevant where the value a battery provides to the grid exceeds market revenue that can readily be monetised.
Different risk and revenue structures
Montenegro’s latest framework envisages a 60 MW / 240 MWh reference battery in a first phase, alongside a broader strategic-partnership structure. An investor could take on some technology and implementation risk while the utility remains involved.
Merchant batteries can offer higher upside and faster private-sector replication, but their leverage depends on downside protection. Contracted or state-backed projects can support longer financing tenors and a lower cost of capital, although they may dilute market incentives.
The expected regional mix includes merchant projects where liquidity and balancing markets are sufficiently deep, and infrastructure-style batteries where grid value exceeds easily monetised market revenue. The appropriate financing model therefore depends on market depth and system value.
