Renewable project finance in South East Europe is becoming more active, but lenders are also more selective. Financing for wind, solar and storage is available, but banks are more cautious about merchant exposure, grid risk, construction risk and sponsor quality than during the early renewables boom.
This shift has been described as a bankability divide. Projects with strong sponsors, credible EPCs, grid access and contracted revenues can raise significant debt, while projects with unclear permits, weak offtake or speculative grid assumptions struggle.
Romania solar financing with CfD and day-ahead market exposure
Romania is currently one of the most important project-finance markets in the region. EBRD arranged a €192 million financing package for three solar plants totaling 531 MW in southeastern Romania. EBRD provided €64 million for its own account and mobilized €128 million from commercial lenders.
One of the projects, Slobozia, benefits from a Contract for Difference awarded under Romania’s inaugural CfD auction. The other two projects sell into the competitive day-ahead market.
The financing mix reflects how lenders approach contracted and merchant exposure. Lenders will finance a combination of contracted and merchant exposure when sponsor, market and project fundamentals are considered strong, with contracted revenue helping anchor the financing.
VIFOR wind project expands with Vestas equipment order
Rezolv Energy’s VIFOR wind project is another benchmark in Romania. The second phase included a 269 MW Vestas order, and the full project is expected to reach 461 MW. The development is described as Romania’s largest wind farm and one of the largest onshore wind farms in Europe.
Large wind projects such as VIFOR are cited as evidence that utility-scale renewables can be supported by international sponsors, global OEMs and institutional financing. Execution scale is also highlighted as a key factor for such developments.
The project requirements listed include grid capacity, turbine availability, land assembly, permitting discipline and long lead-time financing. These elements are treated as part of what lenders consider when assessing construction risk.
Serbia Čibuk 2 reaches financial close with non-recourse debt
Serbia is also described as becoming more bankable for renewables. Masdar and Taaleri reached financial close on the 154 MW Čibuk 2 wind farm with a €144 million non-recourse debt facility from UniCredit and Erste. The project uses Nordex turbines and builds on the existing Čibuk wind cluster.
The deal is presented as showing that Western Balkan wind can attract non-recourse commercial debt when the sponsor group is strong and the project has a credible contractual structure. It also points to repeat infrastructure through sharing or building around existing grid positions to reduce development risk.
Bulgaria battery storage financing uses virtual PPA structure
Bulgaria’s storage market is changing the financing conversation. Enery secured green financing from DSK Bank for its 150 MW / 600 MWh battery storage project in Nova Zagora. The transaction uses a virtual PPA structure involving Vitol.
The project has been described as one of Bulgaria’s most advanced storage financings. Storage finance is differentiated from classic renewable finance because underwriting for batteries depends on spreads, dispatch strategy, balancing markets, degradation and augmentation capex.
Lender comfort in storage deals can also depend on grid fees and sometimes tolling or virtual offtake arrangements. This makes modelling more complex than for generation-only assets under forecast production and contracted prices.
Common elements in bankable SEE renewables deals
The common features of bankable SEE projects include experienced sponsors and the use of bankable OEMs or EPC contractors. Projects are also expected to have documented grid connection and realistic construction timelines.
Where available, deals include contracted revenue alongside clear balancing and market-access arrangements. Curtailment and negative-price risk are allocated carefully within these structures.
Support from DFIs, EU guarantees or national schemes is also highlighted as part of how projects reach bankability standards. DFIs are described as critical because they help crowd in commercial banks.
Role of DFIs including InvestEU-backed EBRD lending and EIB support
EBRD’s loan to PPC for 400 MW of projects in Bulgaria, Greece and Romania benefits from InvestEU support. The support is described as enabling longer-term funding alongside commercial participation.
EIB’s Western Balkan financing is also cited as supporting large projects that may otherwise be harder for local markets to fund alone. These DFI-backed approaches are linked to how lenders manage longer-dated risks across regional portfolios.
Hybridization becomes a next-stage modelling challenge for lenders
The next project-finance challenge is hybridization across new deal structures. Lenders are expected to see solar-plus-storage, wind-plus-storage, merchant-plus-CfD and corporate-PPA-plus-market-exposure arrangements more frequently.
Lenders are said to find these structures harder to model even though they may align better with future power-system needs. The shift changes what banks focus on when assessing cash-flow predictability rather than generation capability alone.
The earlier question was whether a project could generate electricity . The new question is whether it can generate predictable cash flow in a volatile market . This standard is presented as what will distinguish bankable SEE renewables from speculative pipeline .
