Southeast Europe’s next power-market players may enter the market without owning generation assets. A major entrant could have no turbine, dam, solar park or battery fleet, with core capabilities centred on software, customer contracts, telemetry and access to flexible electricity consumption. The model described relies on coordinating thousands of small production and consumption decisions.
The approach is linked to a flexibility shortage that new generation alone cannot address. An ACER 2026 assessment identifies limited flexible resources during the evening solar ramp as a structural driver of regional price stress, alongside cross-border transmission constraints. The assessment points to a shift in focus from building capacity to controlling and shifting existing megawatts.
How an aggregator builds market participation from distributed flexibility
An aggregator combines flexible loads and distributed energy assets into a portfolio sized to participate in electricity markets. Individual resources may be relatively modest, including industrial pumps, refrigerated warehouses, HVAC systems, EV chargers, behind-the-meter batteries, backup generators or prosumer installations. The portfolio value depends on coordination across these dispersed assets.
A coordinated portfolio capable of reducing 20 MW of demand within minutes can provide services associated with conventional balancing resources. It can also increase consumption during periods of oversupply and shift electricity use from evening to midday. The model monetises flexibility already embedded across the economy rather than requiring the aggregator to finance underlying assets.
Regional market rollout across Greece, EU members and Energy Community states
The opportunity is developing unevenly across Southeast Europe. Greece already has dynamic retail pricing linked to smart-meter capabilities, which makes changes in customer consumption more visible from a commercial perspective. EU markets including Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary are becoming more integrated into European balancing platforms and active-customer frameworks.
Serbia and other Energy Community markets are still converting active-customer rights into practical rules for market participation, metering and settlement. The regulatory gap is described as potentially enabling regulators to adopt market models tested elsewhere while allowing regional suppliers and trading companies time to build customer portfolios before competition intensifies. In this setup, industrial and commercial sites are identified as the first major addressable market rather than residential customers.
Industrial coordination examples and flexibility product reliability
Supermarket chains can coordinate refrigeration systems across hundreds of stores. Water utilities can optimise pumping stations and reservoirs, while cement producers can shift selected auxiliary loads. Logistics companies can manage EV charging and data centres can adjust cooling and backup systems within defined operational limits.
Individually, these resources may be too small or operationally complex to participate directly in electricity markets. Aggregation converts fragmentation into scale while diversifying operational risk across multiple customers. If one customer cannot respond, another may still be able to provide flexibility.
Revenue streams beyond balancing and the role of contract terms
A flexibility portfolio can generate revenue beyond balancing markets by reducing supplier imbalance exposure. It can optimise customer capacity charges, capture value from dynamic electricity prices and participate in ancillary services. It may also provide local congestion-management services to distribution system operators.
Diversification is presented as important because returns for individual assets may not be attractive in every market at all times. The aggregator is described as operating more like an asset manager by directing available flexibility toward higher-value applications while respecting each customer’s operational limits.
Contract design is central to the model. Customers need clearly defined boundaries covering maximum activation frequency, minimum notice periods, temperature or pressure limits, battery state-of-charge requirements and compensation for production interruptions. The aggregator also requires reliable measurement and dispatch rights so suppliers and balance-responsible parties are protected against uncoordinated deviations.
Revenue-sharing models may include fixed payments, performance-based compensation or flexibility provisions embedded within broader electricity-supply agreements. One proposition described is structured so the customer does not interact directly with balancing markets, instead receiving a lower overall energy cost in exchange for making part of its consumption controllable.
Regulatory barriers and operational requirements for large-scale aggregation
The largest barriers are described as regulatory and operational. Baseline methodologies must be credible because poorly designed baselines could lead markets to pay for artificial reductions rather than genuine flexibility. Smart-meter data must be available with customer consent.
Prequalification requirements are expected to verify real capabilities without imposing rules designed primarily for large conventional generators. Clear balance-responsibility rules are also needed so market participants cannot receive multiple payments for the same deviation. Cybersecurity is highlighted as increasingly critical as aggregator platforms gain the ability to control equipment across hundreds or thousands of sites.
Capital constraints and partnership models for scaling portfolios
Capital requirements are identified as another challenge even when an aggregator owns few physical assets. Collateral requirements, technology costs and significant customer-acquisition expenses can affect competitiveness, particularly for small software companies without wholesale-market access or credit lines. Established trading houses and utilities with 24/7 dispatch capabilities may have advantages under these conditions.
Partnerships are therefore described as increasingly attractive combinations of software providers, electricity suppliers and industrial-service firms. Such partnerships could combine technology, customers, market access and balance-sheet strength to build portfolios at scale .
Balancing integration through MARI and PICASSO
The strategic implication described is that generation ownership will not be the only route to influence in electricity markets. A company controlling 500 MW of flexible demand could influence procurement and balancing positions without owning equipment behind that capacity.
As European balancing integration develops through platforms such as MARI and PICASSO, flexible resources are expected to face wider competition. Greater value is placed on portfolio quality, availability, geographical distribution and response speed .
The flexibility market in Southeast Europe is expected to develop in stages: industrial optimisation first, formal balancing-market participation next, followed by wider retail aggregation and local DSO services . The region’s first large cross-border portfolio of flexible customers could become a power-market platform in its own right.
