The Moment the Region Finally Took Notice
For years, Albania’s renewable ambitions were treated as an interesting promise rather than an unfolding reality. That changed in 2025. After a string of concrete steps — new financing, formal approvals, and the opening of long-delayed procurement procedures — the country’s energy transition finally crossed a threshold that regional observers could no longer dismiss as theoretical.
The turning point came with the Belsh 50 MWp solar project, a long-planned investment that moved decisively from paperwork to execution. In April 2025, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved a €30 million sovereign-guaranteed loan for the plant, forming the backbone of a €39–40 million financing package supported by EU and Western Balkans Investment Framework grants. By July 2025, the Albanian government and EBRD formally signed the loan and grant agreements, with Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku confirming a €9.58 million EU/WBIF grant on top of the EBRD loan, marking one of the country’s most important clean-energy deals to date.
Momentum accelerated again in the autumn. In November 2025, Albania’s state power utility KESH announced that the procurement for construction of the Belsh plant was expected to open the week of 20 November, signalling that the project had fully cleared its financing, state-guarantee, and preparatory stages and was entering implementation mode — the moment investors wait for before treating a project as real, not aspirational.
Albania’s 2025 Energy Milestones
• 50 MWp Belsh Solar Plant
• €30m EBRD loan (Apr 2025);
• €9.58m EU/WBIF grant (Jul 2025);
• procurement expected to open week of 20 Nov 2025.
• Skavica Hydropower Plant
• state-funded project;
government confirms procedures launched in 2025.
• Vau i Dejës Floating Solar (12.9 MW)
• €13.9m contract (Oct 2024; active financing 2025).
This wasn’t an isolated development. In parallel, Albania advanced a second flagship project: the Skavica Hydropower Plant, a strategic, 100% state-funded investment long viewed as the missing stabiliser in Albania’s hydro-dependent system. In 2025, the government confirmed that procedures had formally begun and that construction was planned to start the following year, elevating Skavica from a political talking point to an active national project with a timeline and budget framework.
After a decade of planning, Albania’s energy transition finally entered the phase investors recognise: execution
Meanwhile, the country’s push into floating solar continued to mature. A Chinese–Spanish consortium (Sungrow + Gamma Solutions) moved forward with a €13.9 million, 12.9-MW floating PV project on the Vau i Dejës reservoir, supported by an EBRD loan and WBIF grant — another demonstration that international finance institutions see Albania as a bankable destination for renewables, not an experimental site.
Taken together, these developments form a pattern that matters far beyond Albania’s borders. Belsh shows that the country can deliver utility-scale solar projects backed by European financing. Skavica demonstrates state commitment at strategic scale. Floating PV proves Albania is willing to diversify its generation profile and modernise its grid. And the EU and EBRD’s involvement signals confidence — the factor that typically triggers a second wave of private-sector capital.
None of these steps individually remake the region. But collectively, they shift Albania from potential to player. The country is still wrestling with grid constraints, hydrological volatility, and the need for upgraded transmission lines. Yet for the first time, the pipeline is large enough — and real enough — to force the institutional reforms and infrastructure investments that have stalled for a decade.
Albania has not declared a renewable-energy revolution. It has simply begun acting like a country that intends to build one.