In 2026, the enthusiasm for new energy development in Bosnia and Herzegovina continues to rise, with a planned total installed capacity of 18100 megawatts for solar and wind energy projects at different stages of development, including approximately 13500 megawatts for solar energy projects and 4600 megawatts for wind power projects. The overall scale is equivalent to 3.3 times the total installed capacity of 5547 megawatts of all existing power generation facilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Behind this number, the contradiction between the rapid advancement of regional energy transformation and the carrying capacity of the power grid is becoming increasingly apparent.

More than 3 times the planned installation capacity has been implemented

The centralized registration of a large number of projects does not mean that all projects can be approved and ultimately landed. The operator of the independent power system in Bosnia and Herzegovina has issued a clear warning in the "Guiding Plan for Power Generation Development from 2027 to 2036" that large-scale centralized integration of new energy into the grid may cause local congestion in the transmission network, putting enormous pressure on the scheduling and operation of the existing power system. In extreme cases, it may even lead to systemic grid failures.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has previously set a development goal of achieving a 40% share of renewable energy by 2030. The current planned total installed capacity of new energy has far exceeded the preset expansion pace of the existing energy system, and the supporting shortcomings on the power grid side are rapidly being exposed. The cross regional transmission capacity and peak shaving resource reserves of the existing transmission lines in the local area cannot match the demand for new energy centralized access that is several times higher than the total installed capacity.

Synchronous expansion of power grid and energy storage

To ensure the safe and stable operation of the power grid, the independent power system operator of Bosnia and Herzegovina has put forward two core suggestions: first, to increase investment in transmission infrastructure, accelerate the upgrading of cross regional transmission channels and local distribution networks; second, to synchronously promote the large-scale construction of battery energy storage systems, comprehensively improve the power grid regulation capacity and the level of new energy consumption.

This also means that the pace of promoting new energy projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the future will no longer be solely determined by the speed of resource development. Grid access conditions and supporting energy storage configuration capabilities will become the core threshold for whether the project can be smoothly connected to the grid and put into operation. The investment in new energy in the entire region is entering a new stage of coordinated planning between the power grid and power sources, from the early stage of resource allocation.Editor/Cheng Liting