Fortis Energy’s Nocaj project in Serbia has reached ready-to-build status with 270 MWp of solar capacity and 72 MWh of battery energy storage. Commercial operation is targeted for the second quarter of 2028. The project illustrates how storage could support corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs) sold as shaped delivery profiles rather than simply as volumes of solar production.
Battery storage can shift some midday solar generation into higher-value hours, reduce imbalance and exposure to negative-price hours, and smooth output ramps. It can also help shape supply around an industrial buyer’s consumption pattern or evening load, aligning delivery more closely with demand.
However, the 72 MWh battery attached to Nocaj can shift only a fraction of the plant’s daily output. It does not make the solar facility dispatchable in the same way as a thermal unit. Fixed-volume or pay-as-produced PPAs leave Serbian industrial buyers exposed to residual purchases from the market.
A shaped renewable supply product could reduce that residual market exposure and potentially support stronger credit quality in the offtake structure. It could also help exporters obtain more traceable low-carbon electricity without taking on the full intermittency of solar production. The approach would move Serbian renewable PPAs from pay-as-produced energy toward shaped industrial supply.
Fortis Energy’s Serbian portfolio also includes Fortis Green, a separate 30 MWp solar project. Commercial operation of Fortis Green is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2027, ahead of Nocaj’s planned start in 2028.
Developers would need to specify how storage is allocated between the buyer and merchant markets, how battery degradation is treated, who is responsible for balancing, and what happens during prolonged periods of low renewable generation. Those terms would establish how much battery flexibility is committed to the buyer and how much can be sold into merchant markets.
A shaped product would need to be transparent about the limits of storage-based shaping while monetising the flexibility premium. Storage can shape supply, but the Nocaj battery’s capacity does not remove the plant’s output constraints or make it fully dispatchable.