Serbia’s electricity story in 2025 is not simply about megawatts, shortages, surpluses, or the occasional headline about emergency imports. It is a narrative about how a country that has historically relied on its domestic coal and hydropower base is now navigating a far more complex regional electricity market, where weather, price signals, infrastructure, political choices, and the slow but steady entrance of renewables all blend together to shape outcomes. The year 2025 sits at an interesting crossroads. Serbia is no longer the “always self-sufficient” power system it once portrayed itself as, yet it is also not merely a passive buyer dependent on neighbors. Instead, it has become an increasingly active trader: importing when it must, exporting when it can, arbitraging price and seasonality, and learning the logic of a modern interconnected European market.
At the heart of this is Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS), the state utility that still dominates generation and drives the majority of Serbia’s electricity balance. However, EPS is no longer alone in defining Serbia’s market behavior. Independent traders, renewable developers, and market participants are now part of the power ecosystem. Still, EPS remains the anchor, the political lightning rod, and the operational backbone. So when we talk about Serbia’s 2025 electricity imports and exports, we are effectively talking about EPS’s capabilities, limitations, and strategic decisions, complemented by the increasingly relevant role of private traders and cross-border exchanges.
By the planning logic and projections that framed 2025, Serbia was expected to hover near a balanced position, leaning slightly toward net export status. Projections for the year placed imports somewhere in the range of roughly 5.5 to 6 TWh and exports around 6 to a little above 6 TWh. That means Serbia is neither a chronically dependent importer nor a carefree exporter swimming in excess capacity. Instead, it lives in a fragile equilibrium. Imports are necessary during certain seasons, especially when hydropower is weak or when coal mines and plants operate under stress. Exports become possible when water levels are favorable, coal units run stably, and regional prices enable profitable outflow. The game is continuous and dynamic, and 2025 is the year Serbia has to truly internalize that this is the new normal.
One of the crucial elements in understanding why Serbia both imports and exports significant quantities in the same year is the variability of its power system. Serbia’s traditional pillars are lignite-fired power plants and large hydropower plants. Coal provides baseload but is sensitive to maintenance, equipment aging, and environmental constraints. Hydropower is inherently dependent on hydrology, and in recent years, Serbia and the wider Balkans have been repeatedly reminded that droughts, climate anomalies, and weather unpredictability are no longer exceptions but increasingly structural realities. In such an environment, EPS must constantly juggle output, managing what it can generate and determining what it must supplement from abroad.
Imports in 2025 therefore do not signal collapse, but rather adaptation. Serbia imports electricity strategically to bridge gaps when domestic output falls short, particularly during winter peaks when consumption surges, heating systems intensify demand, and hydropower often underperforms due to seasonal conditions. There were periods in late 2024 and into 2025 when the system relied on imports at volumes exceeding a gigawatt during peak hours. Those headlines about expensive electricity inflows were not exaggerated, but neither were they evidence of systemic failure. They demonstrate Serbia’s insertion into the European energy rhythm: buying when generation is insufficient or economically irrational to produce locally, sometimes paying dearly, other times securing more favorable deals depending on market timing.
Exports, meanwhile, reflect Serbia’s capacity to still act as a regional supplier under the right conditions. When hydrology improves, when coal units stabilize, and when regional markets reward Serbian output, EPS and other traders take advantage of that window. This is especially visible during spring and early summer periods, and at times when Serbia enjoys surplus capacity relative to consumption. In those moments, Serbia becomes part of the solution for neighbors, contributing power to the grid, capturing revenue, and reaffirming its role as a relevant energy player in South-East Europe. The export figure projected for 2025, slightly exceeding total imports, suggests that Serbia is capable of maintaining that position, albeit without comfort or complacency.
What makes 2025 particularly important is the maturing of Serbia’s trading mindset. A decade ago, political discourse often framed imports as humiliation and exports as glory. Today, the conversation increasingly shifts toward pragmatism. In a modern integrated system, even highly developed EU states import and export continuously. Power trade is not a sign of weakness; it is a normal functional mechanism for efficiency, risk management, and price optimization. Serbia is finally internalizing this, though politics often lags behind reality. EPS’s leadership, operators, and planners are far more aware that flexible trading strategies, hedging, and market agility are as important as megawatts of installed capacity.
Still, behind this evolving maturity lies a structural challenge: Serbia’s generation base remains heavily dominated by aging coal infrastructure and unpredictable hydropower. Renewables have started entering the picture, with new wind and solar capacity added gradually, including in 2025, but their contribution is still modest compared to larger European systems. Yet they matter, not only for decarbonization narratives, but also for trade. Wind farms and solar plants introduce new patterns of supply, sometimes enabling exports when conditions align, other times requiring balancing support from imports or thermal backup. Serbia is now living the same balancing puzzle that Western Europe has grappled with for years. However, Serbia faces it with older infrastructure, tighter budgets, and political expectations that often demand cheap electricity and security without appreciating the complexity of delivery.
The regional dimension further complicates the picture. Serbia sits within a highly interconnected Balkan electricity landscape. Neighboring systems in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Albania all experience their own fluctuations. Hydro-heavy systems like Albania swing dramatically between drought and abundance, sometimes flooding the market with cheap power, other times needing imports desperately. Romania and Bulgaria bring nuclear and strong generation assets into the equation. Hungary functions as a major trading crossroads. Prices ripple through the region, shaped by broader European market dynamics, carbon pricing realities in the EU, and evolving policy frameworks.
Serbia’s 2025 trade therefore cannot be read in isolation. Imports and exports are part of the Balkan and European heartbeat. When European wholesale prices spike, Serbia feels it. When regional supply eases, Serbia benefits. EPS has to react, timing its market entries and exits, ensuring system stability while also protecting financial exposure. Revenue from exports in favorable periods can significantly support EPS’s finances, but poorly timed imports can equally burden the company with expensive bills. This duality defines the strategic tension of 2025.
Another important aspect is perception. For the public, the idea that Serbia imports electricity still carries emotional and political baggage. Every reference to import dependence is framed as failure, mismanagement, or weakness. But the truth is more nuanced. Serbia’s production system is being gradually modernized, although too slowly, and the move toward renewables, storage solutions, grid reinforcement, and regional balancing mechanisms is only beginning. Until these transformations reach maturity, Serbia will have to live with volatility. Imports should be seen as a tool, not an embarrassment. The real issue is whether Serbia builds a system flexible enough to keep imports under control and ensure they are used for economic optimization rather than crisis survival.
In parallel, EPS’s institutional strength matters. Stable, competent management, transparent planning, credible investment programs, and professional trading operations determine how effectively Serbia uses its cross-border position. Mistakes in planning or execution can turn necessary imports into costly financial strain. Delays in investment, particularly in overhauls of coal plants, new hydropower, pumped storage, and renewables integration, prolong exposure to risk. Conversely, disciplined modernization will reduce volatility and enhance export capacity in favorable market conditions.
Looking at 2025 as a whole, Serbia appears set to maintain a delicate balance: importing roughly five to six terawatt hours across the year while exporting a comparable or slightly larger amount. This paints a picture of a system that is neither collapsing nor exuberant, but rather learning to survive in a more complex environment. The idea of Serbia as a permanent exporter is outdated; the idea of unavoidable import dependence is equally wrong. Serbia is now both: a buyer and a seller, sometimes defensive, sometimes opportunistic, always negotiating between physical reality and market economics.
This year also serves as a reminder of the urgency of structural reforms and investments. The more resilient Serbia’s generation fleet becomes, the more intelligently renewables are integrated, and the more robust its grid and storage capacities grow, the easier it will be to manage trade on Serbia’s own terms. Then imports will truly become strategic choice rather than necessity, and exports will reflect strength rather than luck. 2025 is therefore not the final page, but a chapter in which Serbia’s electricity sector tests its adaptability and confronts honest realities.
In the end, electricity imports and exports in 2025 should not be viewed as narrow statistics but as indicators of a deeper transformation. Serbia is learning what it means to operate within the European energy ecosystem, discovering the costs of vulnerability and the opportunities of interconnection. EPS is still central, but no longer the only actor that matters. Traders, new generators, regional exchanges, and European price dynamics all matter too. Serbia stands at a point where energy is no longer only an engineering domain but a space where economics, policy, markets, and climate all collide.
If Serbia uses 2025 as a year of learning rather than denial, the next phase can be far more strategic. But if the country simply treats imports as scandal and exports as victory without deeper reform, the system will oscillate between crisis and relief with little progress in between. The balance sheets of imports and exports may be nearly equal in numerical terms, but their real significance lies in what they force Serbia to face: the need to modernize, diversify, professionalize, and adapt. That is the true story behind every megawatt imported and every megawatt exported in 2025.