EPS, Masdar Discuss Battery Storage Deal

The two wind farms that Emirati company Masdar operates in Serbia, Cibuk 1 and Cibuk 2, have together passed 300 megawatts of installed capacity, roughly 25 percent of the country’s total solar and wind output. The Ministry of Mining and Energy released the figure after a meeting between Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic, who holds the post in the government’s technical mandate, and Masdar’s chief executive Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, held on September 15 in Vrdnik on the sidelines of the “RES Serbia 2026” conference.

The talks centered on a memorandum of understanding between Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS), Serbia’s state power utility, and Masdar covering joint projects, among them the construction of large battery storage facilities.

“It is precisely in the field of batteries that we see an opportunity for cooperation with Masdar and for a partnership with our power utility, given the company’s extensive experience from the UAE in this area. In that sense, we also discussed signing a memorandum of understanding between EPS and Masdar on initiatives for joint projects, including the construction of large battery storage facilities,” the minister said.

Battery storage addresses a problem inherent to solar and wind power: the electricity produced is not always consumed the moment it is generated. For EPS, that means the ability to store power from Cibuk and other sources and release it into the grid according to demand, rather than buying it up under a fixed scheme.

Djedovic Handanovic congratulated Al Ramahi on the completion of Cibuk 2, a 154 megawatt wind farm near Kovin whose launch Srpske Novine has already covered. Together with the 158 megawatt Cibuk 1, Masdar’s two plants generate enough electricity for close to 180,000 households, the minister said, with EPS buying the output for the domestic market.

“The trust that Masdar showed by investing in Serbia was a good signal for the many other investments that followed in the renewable energy sector,” the minister said, adding that “Masdar has proven itself in recent years to be a reliable partner in developing the renewable energy sector” and that she expects the cooperation to continue on new projects.

The figures the ministry released show how much the market has shifted in four years. Serbia’s combined solar and wind capacity has grown from about 400 megawatts to more than 1.3 gigawatts, with around 1.5 gigawatts expected by the end of 2026. Solar power alone crossed 400 megawatts for the first time this summer after 138 megawatts were added over the past year; four and a half years ago Serbia had just 13 megawatts of solar capacity. Two rounds of auctions for market premiums have supported 17 solar and wind plants with a combined capacity of about 1.2 gigawatts and a value close to 1.5 billion euros, nine of which are already operating, while the remaining projects are expected to add another 784 megawatts.

The minister said she expects more than 3 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity by the end of the decade, with prosumers, households and companies generating their own electricity, potentially adding over 300 megawatts by 2030. Masdar is expanding elsewhere in the region at the same time, developing solar projects in Montenegro and, in Albania, projects with a potential capacity of up to 3,000 megawatts.

The “RES Serbia 2026” conference, running September 15 and 16 in the ballroom of the Vrdnicka Kula hotel, was opened by the minister and Al Ramahi alongside Grzegorz Zielinski, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD) director for southeast Europe, and Milos Colic, chairman of the governing board of the RES Serbia association. Attendance figures vary by source: Sputnik Serbia put the crowd at 500 to 600 guests, while the organizer and Tanjug reported more than 600 participants from 30 countries, with 50 domestic and international speakers. The ministry has not yet announced a deadline for signing the EPS-Masdar memorandum.