Bulgaria’s latest call for battery energy storage capacity has selected over 4 GWh of projects that will be supported with a total grant funding of BGN 228.9 million (USD 137.1m/EUR 117m), the country’s Ministry of Energy announced.
The second round of the National Infrastructure for Storage of Electricity from Renewable Sources (RESTORE) procedure of Bulgaria’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) has attracted 93 project proposals, indicating high interest in the country’s nascent energy storage market. The 31 successful schemes to be backed by the initiative were launched by 25 companies.
The RESTORE2 procedure targeted projects with at least 1.9 GWh of usable energy capacity at the level of the electricity grid, with the total announced budget for the call standing at BGN 230.7 million. Due to a shortage of financial resources, 30 projects from 27 companies, which have requested some BGN 100 million, will remain on the reserve list for funding.
According to the Association for Production, Storage and Trading of Electricity (APSTE), some BGN 750 million in grant funding was requested through all submitted projects in the procedure. The average grant requested per project is less than EUR 36,000 per 1 MWh.
The battery energy storage systems (BESS) will be installed at multiple locations across the country and will be connected to the national power transmission grid. They should be commissioned by July 31, 2026.
Currently, Bulgaria has 1.5 GWh of batteries in operation, while an additional 10 GWh are due to go online by March 2026. The under-construction capacity was awarded in RESTORE’s initial call, which made available some BGN 1.15 billion of EU-backed grant funding.
