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
Across South-East Europe, hydropower development has settled into a stable but deeply unproductive equilibrium. Feasibility studies are commissioned, revised and relaunched with increasing technical sophistication, while the physical projects they describe remain untouched. This is not a failure of hydrology, engineering or economics. It is a deliberate system in which analysis substitutes for decision-making and
Perspective gas interconnections but never converted into steel in the ground Read More »
Across South-East Europe’s gas sector, feasibility studies have become a permanent layer of the energy system rather than a transitional step toward construction. The region is not short of concepts, routes, demand forecasts or engineering detail. What it lacks is the moment when capital, regulation and political ownership converge tightly enough to force execution. The
Carbon cost pass-through in post-Russian SEE energy systems Read More »
The withdrawal of Russian ownership from oil assets across South-East Europe has not only altered who controls energy infrastructure, but also how costs are transmitted through the energy system. One of the most consequential shifts lies in the treatment of carbon. Under the previous ownership and pricing regime, carbon costs were often implicit, absorbed within
Hydrogen economics under gas repricing Read More »
Hydrogen has been positioned across South-East Europe as a strategic bridge between energy security, industrial decarbonisation and European integration. National strategies, pilot projects and policy roadmaps have converged around hydrogen as a future-proof solution capable of absorbing surplus renewables, decarbonising heavy industry and anchoring new investment cycles. Yet the ownership exit of Russian oil assets
Refinery by-products: Petcoke, bitumen and construction inflation in South-East Europe Read More »
The transfer of ownership of Russian oil assets across South-East Europe has not only changed who controls refineries and fuel retail networks; it has fundamentally altered how a range of secondary energy commodities are priced, supplied and financed. These by-products of refining—petroleum coke, bitumen, sulphur and heavy fuel intermediates—rarely feature in high-level energy debates, yet
Nuclear fuel and uranium: Europe’s quiet Russian dependency Read More »
The ownership exit of Russian oil assets from South-East Europe has sharpened attention on vulnerabilities that were long considered peripheral to the region’s energy debate. Among them, nuclear fuel stands out as the least visible and yet most structurally entrenched dependency. While oil and gas flows dominate political discourse, the nuclear fuel cycle continues to
