North Macedonia is structuring its planned 100 MW / 400 MWh battery in Bitola as strategic grid infrastructure, rather than solely as a merchant trading asset. The project is estimated to cost EUR 98 million, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is considering a sovereign-guaranteed loan of up to EUR 33.1 million. The four-hour system is planned as part of a wider grid-modernisation project.
Financing is also expected from KfW, concessional resources from the Clean Technology Fund and an investment grant from the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF). The EBRD loan remains under consideration, while the additional sources are expected to contribute to the project’s financing package. The facts provided do not specify the amounts expected from those sources.
The project scope extends beyond storage to include central SCADA, generation-planning and trading software, as well as IT and cybersecurity infrastructure for ESM. Together with the battery, those systems are intended to support broader operating-system integration. The quality of that integration and of dispatch affects the value the system can provide.
The financing structure accounts for benefits that may be difficult to monetise through a pure merchant model. These include reduced renewable curtailment, improved system flexibility and greater balancing capability. Public and concessional capital can support those system benefits even if day-ahead arbitrage alone would not support the same debt burden.
The project offers a potential financing model for other Western Balkan utilities considering a first large battery energy storage system. Under that approach, storage is financed as a grid-modernisation platform, with merchant revenues improving the economics rather than carrying the entire credit case. The plan combines the battery’s four-hour duration with software and infrastructure intended to support grid operation.
