By 2025 wind power has become the quiet stabiliser of the South-East European electricity system. Unlike solar, which floods the grid in predictable daylight waves and collapses at sunset, wind delivers energy across the full 24-hour cycle, smooths residual demand, strengthens export capacity in key markets and materially reduces fuel and carbon exposure. It does not eliminate volatility—wind has its own intermittency—but in capacity, annual energy contribution and macro-system value, wind is now an anchor technology across the region.
The leading wind market in South-East Europe today is Romania. Installed wind capacity in Romania stands in the range of 3.1–3.3 gigawatts in 2025, primarily concentrated in Dobrogea and other high-resource zones. Depending on wind conditions in a given year and seasonal performance, this fleet delivers between 6.5 and 7.5 terawatt-hours annually, which translates into roughly 9–11 percent of national electricity generation. Crucially, wind is not just an energy contributor; it is a structural component of Romania’s export capability. During high-wind episodes, typically in late autumn, winter and parts of spring, Romania pushes substantial volumes into Hungary and regional exchanges, strengthening its trade saldo and reducing reliance on gas and coal in winter peaks. In low-hydro or stress years, wind substantially cushions the system. In high-wind winters, it becomes one of Romania’s most profitable energy assets, lowering thermal dispatch costs and reducing national exposure to volatile fuel markets.
Greece has paired its extraordinary solar rise with a highly meaningful wind build-out. Installed wind capacity in Greece in 2025 stands around 5 gigawatts, with annual wind generation edging into the 8–9 terawatt-hour range depending on wind regimes. That puts wind consistently above 18–20 percent of national generation when combined with hydrology and other renewables in favourable years, and it plays a very specific macro-economic role: it smooths Greece’s exposure to solar ramps and stabilises the night-time and shoulder-hour supply profile. While solar defines midday pricing and export surpluses, wind increasingly defines overnight and off-peak security. On days with strong wind, Greece’s fossil generation drops materially, and Greece can maintain export flows beyond daylight hours. Wind therefore strengthens Greece’s structural export posture, reduces gas burn, lowers emissions liabilities and improves the bankability of the country’s clean-energy strategy.
Bulgaria has also built a wind base large enough to matter financially and operationally. Bulgarian wind capacity in 2025 sits close to 1.4–1.6 gigawatts, producing in the range of 2.5–3.2 terawatt-hours per year depending on wind performance. That is a solid 6–8 percent share of national electricity output. What makes wind strategically important in Bulgaria is its complementarity with nuclear and solar. Nuclear provides stable baseload, solar saturates daytime hours, and wind fills a significant part of the off-peak and transitional hours. This directly strengthens Bulgaria’s export saldo: in 2024–2025 the country continued to post annual net exports exceeding 10 terawatt-hours, and wind consistently contributes to this strength by providing clean megawatt-hours when regional systems still need power but solar has faded. In wholesale pricing terms, strong wind weeks visibly depress regional day-ahead prices and give Bulgarian traders and utilities a powerful price-hedging asset.
Croatia remains earlier in its wind trajectory but has already reached structural importance. By 2025 Croatia’s installed wind capacity is in the region of 1.1–1.3 gigawatts. With typical capacity factors between 28 and 35 percent depending on site mix and annual climate performance, this translates into roughly 2.3–3 terawatt-hours of wind generation per year. Given Croatia’s relatively modest national consumption profile, this is material: wind already covers more than 10 percent of national electricity needs and significantly reduces imports in winter months when hydro is constrained. Wind, along with solar and interconnectors, is one of the main reasons Croatia’s exposure to high-price imports has moderated and why its wholesale price profile increasingly resembles modern diversified EU systems rather than a hydro-dominant, import-dependent market.
In the Western Balkans, wind is no longer theoretical—it is increasingly decisive.
Serbia today has around 1.2–1.3 gigawatts of installed wind capacity by 2025, after successive project waves in Vojvodina and other high-wind regions. Annual output varies but typically lands between 2.8 and 3.2 terawatt-hours per year, equivalent to nearly 9–10 percent of Serbia’s national electricity production. For EPS and Serbia’s power balance this matters profoundly. Wind generates at night, in winter, in shoulder seasons and in hours when solar is absent, providing badly needed non-lignite flexibility and reducing the structural burden on coal units. It has directly helped Serbia stabilise its export posture, reduce expensive imports and regain macro-energy confidence after the crisis years. Every incremental megawatt-hour of wind effectively displaces lignite burn and associated environmental and financial liabilities, while improving Serbia’s long-term competitiveness as an industrial platform with increasingly cleaner power.
North Macedonia, one of the region’s more power-tight systems, has built a wind base that is growing from symbolic to meaningful. By 2025, national wind capacity is approaching 300–350 megawatts, producing around 600–700 gigawatt-hours annually. That equals roughly 10–12 percent of national consumption in favourable wind years. For a system that historically relied heavily on coal and imports, this is strategically significant. Each terawatt-hour of wind reduces the financial and macro-risk exposure of the system, cuts fossil fuel costs and stabilises security of supply. As the country moves toward large-scale renewable additions in the second half of the decade, wind is functioning as both immediate relief and a forward transition pillar.
Montenegro currently runs a more modest but impactful wind fleet. With around 120–140 megawatts of installed wind producing 300–350 gigawatt-hours per year, wind accounts for approximately 10 percent of national electricity production in a typical hydrology year. In a system where a single coal power plant and hydropower define most of the year’s balance, that 10 percent makes the difference between structural import pressure and stable yearly equilibrium. Wind is particularly valuable in dry years when hydropower declines; it directly protects Montenegro’s macro-energy exposure and helps the national utility navigate tighter trade conditions without fully relying on market imports.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is now scaling wind rapidly. Installed wind capacity has moved into the 300–400 megawatt range by 2025, producing around 700–900 gigawatt-hours annually. In a country where hydropower is large but vulnerable to rainfall volatility, and where coal remains central but financially pressured, wind adds resilience. It diversifies Bosnia’s clean-energy portfolio, reduces pressure on coal units in high-wind hours, improves the export picture and reduces exposure to hydrology swings.
Albania’s case may be the most symbolically important in the region. For decades Albania was almost completely dependent on hydropower and paid a heavy price in drought years through massive imports. By 2025 Albania has begun adding meaningful wind capacity: roughly 250 megawatts installed or under commissioning and expected annual energy contributions in the 600–700 gigawatt-hour zone. While still a minority share of Albania’s 7–9 terawatt-hour electricity system, this is strategic insurance. It steers Albania away from single-resource dependency, improves its capacity to withstand dry hydrological cycles and creates more predictable winter supply.
If you sum wind generation across South-East Europe in 2025, the numbers are now macro-relevant. Wind production in Greece, Romania and Bulgaria together already exceeds 16–19 terawatt-hours annually. Add Croatia’s 2.5 terawatt-hours, Serbia’s 3 terawatt-hours, North Macedonia’s 0.7 terawatt-hours and Western Balkans contributions from Montenegro, Bosnia and Albania, and regional wind energy is now comfortably above 23–25 terawatt-hours per year. That moves wind into the same strategic energy bracket as nuclear in Bulgaria, hydro in the Western Balkans or lignite in Serbia—no longer optional, but a fundamental stability pillar.
The next analytical layer is balancing and flexibility. Unlike solar, wind operates through multiple daily cycles and weather regimes. It can ramp unpredictably and over longer time windows rather than sharply at sunrise and sunset. This creates a different balancing profile. In simple operational terms, strong wind weeks sharply lower thermal dispatch, depress wholesale prices, boost exports and lower system costs—but weak wind sequences require rapid compensation from hydro, gas or imports.
Hydropower again serves as the first flexibility mechanism, providing upward and downward reserve. Gas plants across Greece, Romania and Bulgaria serve as secondary buffers when wind drops. Cross-border exchanges have become critical; wind-driven surpluses in one country are often monetised as exports into a neighbour experiencing lower wind at the same time. However, as regional wind capacity increases synchronously across SEE, there will be more episodes where wind conditions correlate geographically, reducing the smoothing effect of trade. This is pushing markets toward more sophisticated balancing products, intraday optimisation and eventually toward larger storage portfolios.
Financially, wind now stabilises utility income streams and strengthens sovereign energy resilience. Its zero-fuel cost protects utilities from commodity and FX shocks. Its carbon-free nature improves exposure to carbon pricing and CBAM pressure. Its 24-hour capability makes it structurally more valuable in balancing portfolios than solar alone. And its rising capacity ensures more predictable export surpluses, which translate directly into better trade balances and more attractive macro-risk profiles.
The reality in 2025 is that South-East Europe is quietly entering a wind decade. Installed capacity already anchors stability, and pipelines are large enough to materially reshape generation structures through 2030. Wind is improving annual electricity saldos, lowering fossil import bills, strengthening export volumes, stabilising overnight and winter security and forcing markets to evolve toward smarter balancing frameworks. For investors and policymakers, the message is clear: wind in SEE is no longer just renewable energy—it is now a structural financial stabiliser, an industrial competitiveness enabler and a core pillar of regional energy sovereignty.
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