Bulgaria now has around 100 battery storage systems with a combined capacity of 5.7 gigawatts, the energy ministry says. That's almost a quarter of the country's entire power production capacity, and most of the batteries were built in the last two years.
The batteries store extra power when production is high and feed it back into the grid when demand spikes. Experts link the growth to fewer bureaucratic hurdles, the rise of solar power and EU funding. In 2025 alone, Bulgaria accounted for around 9% of all new storage capacity added across the continent.
Those systems proved their worth this summer, when low water levels on the Danube made it harder to generate power in parts of eastern Europe. In July and August, Bulgaria exported around 830 gigawatt-hours of electricity a month — more than double the average for May and June.
Some of the projects are built on old industrial sites or next to existing power plants, since those locations already have a grid connection. That's the case at the Maritsa East 3 power plant, where the old infrastructure now also serves the new battery systems.
Experts say Bulgaria's example shows how fast this kind of capacity can come online when market conditions and funding line up. It also emerged that Tesla is in talks over three large battery projects in the country — another sign that Bulgaria is drawing interest from foreign companies in the sector.