Albania’s 631 MW solar market turns to storage

On Albania’s electricity dashboard, the number that stands out is 702 GWh: output from renewable sources other than hydropower during the first half of 2026. That was a 51% increase from the same period in 2025. Behind it sits a solar market that reached 631 MW of cumulative capacity by the end of 2025, according to the Energy Regulator Authority (ERE).

Dr. Lorenc Gordani, an energy market and regulatory lawyer and lecturer, sees the market changing shape. Utility-scale solar remains the main investment driver, he told pv magazine, but commercial self-generation and distributed solar are becoming more relevant. ERE continued processing new and modified photovoltaic licences during the first half of 2026, pointing to a substantial project pipeline even though a consolidated official figure for new solar capacity in 2026 is not yet available.

The new electricity-sector law No. 59/2026 provides the legal setting for the next stage. Effective from July, it added energy storage operations and aggregation—the coordination of multiple electricity resources—as licensed activities. It also allows “active clients” to generate, consume, store and sell electricity. Separately, rules adopted in May established grid-connection and compensation procedures for renewable self-producers under a net-billing system, which Gordani said should support distributed and commercial-and-industrial solar.

And concretely? Solar developers can increasingly look beyond a panel-only project: storage, flexible generation, market participation and grid services are becoming part of the investment case. ERE is working to register storage operators, while Albania’s renewable-energy legislation provides a framework for storage support and integration. For businesses producing their own power, the new self-producer rules offer a defined route to connect and receive compensation.

The limits are equally concrete. Gordani identifies grid capacity, balancing, flexibility and bankability as the biggest challenges as solar penetration rises. Albania generated a quarterly record of 448 GWh from other renewable sources in the second quarter of 2026, but the figures do not by themselves show how much storage is operating or how many projects have reached construction. Gordani expects strong growth through the rest of 2026, particularly in utility-scale and commercial-and-industrial projects, with an “interesting window” for investors and developers in 2026–27.