Across South-East Europe, hydropower development has settled into a stable but deeply unproductive equilibrium. Feasibility studies are commissioned, revised and relaunched with increasing technical sophistication, while the physical projects they describe remain untouched. This is not a failure of hydrology, engineering or economics. It is a deliberate system in which analysis substitutes for decision-making and postpones ownership of irreversible risk.
From the Drina basin to the Morača, from the Neretva and Vrbas to the Ibar, Crna Reka and Vjosë, the same rivers reappear in planning documents every few years. Installed capacities are recalculated, environmental mitigation refined and capital expenditure updated, typically converging around €2–4 million per MW for large schemes and €1.5–2.5 million per MW for run-of-river projects. Annual generation estimates are sharpened to the last gigawatt-hour. Yet the essential step — committing to permits, financing and construction — is systematically deferred.
The Upper Drina cascade remains emblematic. With combined capacity of roughly 400–450 MW and expected annual production of 1.6–1.8 TWh, it would rank among the most valuable balancing assets in the region. Feasibility rounds have consistently placed total investment at €900 million to €1.2 billion. Each iteration reconfirms system benefits, and each stops short of resolving cross-border governance, environmental liability and balance-sheet exposure. The project survives because its strategic value is acknowledged, but it never advances because no single actor accepts responsibility for its long-term risks.
Montenegro’s Morača and Komarnica projects illustrate how national projects fall into the same pattern. The Morača cascade, at 230–250 MW and 700–800 GWh per year with capex of €600–800 million, has been analysed for more than two decades. Komarnica, smaller but still substantial at 170–180 MW and €250–300 million, follows the same path. Each new study adjusts layouts to respond to environmental pressure, gradually eroding economics while avoiding the political cost of a definitive yes or no.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Upper Neretva and Vrbas projects show how repeated feasibility can hollow out bankability. Combined capacities of 300–350 MW on the Neretva and 150–200 MW on the Vrbas promise 1.2–1.4 TWh of annual output and require €1.0–1.3 billion in investment. Feasibility updates continuously rebalance environmental mitigation against returns, producing projects that are always technically acceptable and never financially decisive.
Serbia’s Ibar cascade, typically presented as 100–120 MW and around 400 GWh annually with capex of €220–280 million, has circulated through planning cycles for years. It is regularly framed as a regional development catalyst, yet unresolved land ownership, local opposition and uncertainty over long-term pricing support ensure that each political cycle begins with another feasibility announcement rather than a construction tender.
North Macedonia’s Cebren and Galiste on the Crna Reka push the pattern to system scale. At 330–350 MW, nearly 1 TWh per year and €700–900 million of required investment, the projects have been repackaged through public investment models, concessions and PPP concepts. Each attempt has restarted the feasibility clock, postponing the moment when sovereign risk, environmental exposure and multi-year construction commitments would have to be owned explicitly.
Even in Albania, where hydropower dominates the generation mix, feasibility repetition persists. Before protection status was granted, the Vjosë basin hosted studies for 300–400 MW of potential capacity. Elsewhere, mid-scale projects of 30–50 MW with capex of €50–80 million continue to be re-analysed as developers attempt to hedge against regulatory shifts and concession uncertainty.
Across all these cases, feasibility serves the same function. It preserves option value, satisfies planning and donor expectations, and distributes responsibility so widely that no single actor must decide. The risks being deferred are not abstract. Large hydro ties up capital for 5–8 years before full commissioning, concentrates geological and construction risk at the front end, and locks in environmental impacts for generations. Accepting those risks requires political durability and financial commitment that short institutional cycles actively discourage.
As in gas, hydropower feasibility in South-East Europe has become a rational equilibrium. Studies cost millions; construction costs hundreds of millions. Studies generate alignment and visibility; construction generates liability and scrutiny. Until governments, utilities and regulators redefine feasibility as a phase that must end with irreversible commitments on permits, financing structures and EPC scope, the region will continue to optimise its rivers on paper while its energy systems grow older and more constrained.
The failure is not analytical. It is institutional. And as long as avoiding ownership of risk remains the dominant incentive, hydropower in South-East Europe will remain an archive of ever-improving studies rather than a portfolio of operating assets.