Europe’s energy transition is widely discussed as a capital challenge, a regulatory challenge or a political challenge. In practice, it is increasingly an engineering-capacity challenge. As power systems become more complex, digitised and interconnected, the volume of applied engineering required to move projects from concept to operation has expanded faster than the supply of qualified […]
Energy storage has moved from the margins of Europe’s energy system to its centre. Batteries are no longer pilot assets designed to demonstrate technical feasibility. They are now financial instruments, grid-stability tools and strategic infrastructure rolled into one. As storage deployment accelerates, the constraint is no longer whether batteries work or whether markets exist for
Europe’s energy transition is grid-limited. This is no longer a warning; it is a defining condition. Across the continent, renewable capacity is outpacing the physical ability of transmission and distribution systems to absorb it. Congestion, curtailment, redispatch and delayed connections are no longer exceptional events but structural features of the system. In this environment, the
Why energy projects clear in South-East Europe when they stall In core EU markets Read More »
Across Europe’s energy transition, the gap between announced projects and delivered assets is widening. Targets continue to rise, capital remains available and political alignment appears strong, yet a growing share of projects in core EU markets fail to move from late planning into physical execution. In contrast, a quieter pattern is emerging in South-East Europe.
Germany’s energy transition has entered a phase where technical feasibility is no longer the binding constraint. The bottleneck is industrial execution under cost, time and risk pressure. Power generation assets can be planned, grids can be modelled, and hydrogen strategies can be drafted, but the physical delivery of energy infrastructure—plants, substations, converters, storage systems, control
South-East Europe’s electricity markets now operate under formally liberalised and largely EU-aligned frameworks, yet their real-world behaviour continues to reflect structural fragilities that distinguish the region from deeper and more liquid European markets. Limited system size, persistent import dependence, thin trader participation and constrained interconnections combine to produce outcomes that are legally compliant but economically
The entry into force of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism on January 1 is not occurring in isolation. Its effects extend well beyond traditional heavy industry and are beginning to intersect with the European Union’s renewable energy, battery and broader clean-technology value chains in ways that were insufficiently anticipated during the design phase of the
Manipulation of electricity import prices in SEE power market Read More »
A report by the Kosovo Transmission System and Market Operator (KOSTT) suggests possible manipulation of prices for electricity imported into Kosovo, implicating Serbia’s state energy company Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) and private trader Noa Energy Trade in coordinated behaviour during cross-border capacity auctions in 2025. The findings raise questions about how auction mechanisms were used to inflate transmission costs beyond the underlying electricity
The decision by power utility EPS to open its coal ash landfills, overburden dumps and degraded mining land to foreign joint-venture partners for solar and battery storage projects looks puzzling at first glance. EPS owns the land, controls grid access, understands the system better than any private player, and in theory enjoys implicit sovereign backing. In
Within EPS power utility company the story of repeated feasibility does not stop with classical hydropower. It becomes even more pronounced when looking at projects explicitly designed to solve Serbia’s most visible system weaknesses: flexibility, balancing and security of supply. Reversible hydropower and gas-fired generation have been identified for more than a decade as strategic answers
