BEF 2025: Corporates’ education, product diversification crucial to speed-up PPA uptake

Capacity building and education for corporates, together with product diversification and an upgrade of the regulatory framework, could clear the obstacles for power purchase agreements in the Western Balkans, which are lagging behind the other countries in Southeast Europe. In addition to their other benefits, such contracts could contribute to securing baseload energy from hybrid facilities, given that baseload is a key issue for the decarbonization of the region, according to the participants of a panel on power purchase agreements, held at Belgrade Energy Forum 2025 (BEF 2025).

BEF 2025 has gathered four hundred participants from more than 30 countries in the region, Europe, and beyond.

The panel PPAs as a key to renewable energy growth in SEE featured stakeholders from all segments of the PPA market: developers, corporates, utilities and consultants. The discussion comprised five segments – the global trends, main drivers, the region’s specifics, challenges and trends, and the implications of the model.

The panel’s moderator was Mislav Slade-Šilović, Energy, Utilities & Resources Consulting Leader for Southeast Europe and member of the core PPA team at the consultancy PwC.

Global trends: PPAs are hot, but the solar capture rate is becoming an issue

According to Natalija Ljubić, Manager of PPA & BESS Transactions at Pexapark, PPAs are still hot in Europe. On a monthly basis, between 500 MW and 2,000 MW of new PPAs are signed (15 to 30 deals). She referred to long-term, fixed-price PPAs considered bankable and publicly announced. There is much more together with short-term PPAs, for two to three years.

There is an impression that everything comes down to corporate PPAs, but there are many utility PPAs that aren’t always made public, she added.

The majority are physical PPAs but Pexapark is registering more and more financial PPAs. In 2025, almost 20% of all the announced PPAs were financial, whereas a couple of years ago, they made up 5% to 10%. There are more pay-as-produced contracts than the monthly ones for baseload energy.

Mislav Slade-Šilović (PwC) added that 70% of PPAs in SEE are virtual or financial.

It’s quite challenging in the region to find a creditworthy counterparty on the consumer side

For developer Joffroy Beckers, Head of PPA at DRI, it’s quite challenging to find a creditworthy counterparty on the consumer side of the market in the region comprising Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. So when the firm wants to speed things up with selling its electricity, it goes to utilities or traders.

Negative prices are emerging in the region, with much more cannibalization for solar in the long term, he added.

According to Bulgaria’s Association for Production, Storage, and Trading of Electricity – APSTE, the situation in the region is different than five years ago. “There were zero PPAs in the region, but now they start to get common. Paradoxically, the conditions start getting much more and more complex,” chairman Nikola Gazdov said.

Mislav Slade-Šilović (PwC) pointed to the decline in the solar capture rate – the ratio of the price of solar power and wholesale price. It is spilling over to the PPA price and increasing its complexity, and solar PPAs are generally more complex than the ones for wind power, he added.

Main drivers: Different priorities ask for different PPA models

For Ivana Đurović, Category Manager Renewable Energy at Knauf Group, PPAs are a game changer in energy procurement because essentially it’s no longer just about buying energy or hedging. “Now corporate PPAs bring the long-term deal, so they even extend the tenure for those hedging, and they also allow us to achieve our sustainability targets,” she explained.

PPAs aren’t for companies with consumption below 30 GWh or 40 GWh per year, while branding and cost savings are often the reasons for companies to sign them.

Such factors determine the PPA product that the offtaker opts for, Mislav Slade-Šilović (PwC) stressed.

According to Nikola Gazdov (APSTE), in the region comprising Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece, PPAs are usually signed by corporates that have some ESG commitments or want to show their clients and customers that they are thinking green.

The key feature of a PPA is the partnership between two companies

As examples of the various kinds of deals, he mentioned a physical PPA with an electricity-intensive consumer, virtual PPA with a telecom and a PPA with a big international company producing tires, combining the two types.

As a developer, DRI is modifying its strategy toward a mixed portfolio. Instead offering a solar asset for a PPA, it adds wind power plants and combines different technologies into a single contract. “It allows us to capture a better price, and this is also usually more beneficial for the off-taker. The second thing is that we’re trying to keep this upside in our PPA by entering a floor price instead of a fixed price,” Joffroy Beckers (DRI) revealed.

For Mislav Slade-Šilović (PwC) the key characteristic of a PPA is the partnership between two companies. It needs to be balanced, to ensure that both parties can fulfill throughout the tenure. If one goes bankrupt, then it doesn’t make sense for both parties, he underlined.

The specifics in the region: Corporates need to learn, PPAs should be more diverse

Serbia’s state-owned power utility Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) has been signing a lot of PPAs. However, the difference from the conventional deals is that they are based on premiums. But according to Davor Pupovac, head of the company’s market analysis and risk management, it is interested in corporate PPAs that don’t include government support. There is not much interest among consumers for corporate PPAs with EPS, he revealed.

Mislav Slade-Šilović (PwC) said the role of EPS and big power utilities is very important in developing the PPA market. A dominant supplier in a market has a critical role, either as a sleever or as someone that will provide B2B products to off-takers and developers or producers for entering the market, he said.

Joffroy Beckers (DRI) agreed with him about the role of big utilities in facilitating PPAs and expressed the belief that in the near future, they would get a larger share as intermediaries.

Asked if corporate PPAs are coming anytime soon in Serbia, Davor Pupovac (EPS) said: “Not so soon.” However, he claimed EPS wouldn’t lose consumers regardless of the fact that it has no such product.

Corporates aren’t super ready for PPAs because they are seeking stability when it comes to the energy price

In Ivana Đurović’s (Knauf) view, there are several reasons for the slow uptake of corporate PPAs in the Western Balkans. Corporate buyers aren’t super ready for PPAs because they are seeking stability when it comes to the energy price, but the pay-as-produced PPA model is dominant in the market, which doesn’t ensure price stability. Monthly baseload deals would enable more price stability.

A bigger offtake through PPAs requires corporates to build their capacity for closing such deals and for the offer to be more diverse, she stressed.

Natalija Ljubić (Pexapark) agreed with her and suggested that companies need to understand more about the risks and accounting. Also, not many corporates are willing to enter five- to ten-year agreements as they don’t know their demand or costs that far ahead, Ljubić underlined.

Challenges, risks: Management boards are delving into energy-related topics in detail

Creditworthiness is one of the key challenges, Joffroy Beckers (DRI) said. As he sees it, credit insurance could be key, providing a kind of a state guarantee. Nikola Gazdov (APSTE) again stressed education. He also recalled that all European countries needed time to get along with PPAs.

“But coming to credit risk, I think that now we also see the European Commission taking note of the situation,” Gazdov noted.

As for education, Mislav Slade-Šilović (PwC) said it requires one to two years. Management boards of companies from different industries on the offtake side are forced to delve into energy-related topics in detail, he noted.

There are practically no obstacles for PPAs in Serbia

Slade-Šilović asked EPS’s representative whether the utility is prepared to offer B2B products, arguing that they go hand-in-hand with PPA market development.

Davor Pupovac (EPS) responded that there are practically no obstacles to PPAs in Serbia. Namely, there is an electricity exchange, EPS is willing to sign contracts with developers for sleeving or balancing, the guarantees of origin (GO) system is in place, and EPS is active on power exchanges in the region as a producer and supplier.

“EPS could also offer a route to market to the off-taker. However, currently, it cannot offer access to the spot or forward market,” he explained.

Coming from a corporate electricity consumer, Ivana Đurović (Knauf) was curious what EPS could offer to a perfect corporate off-taker asking for a physical PPA. Pupovac answered that currently it would be a pay-as-produced deal.

What does the implementation bring us: hybrid combinations open the room for innovative deals

Mislav-Slade Šilović (PwC) summarized the landscape. “If you look at the broader EU situation and challenges, especially with solar capture rates, negative prices, we are now already discussing technology advanced structures including batteries and other hybrid solutions on the PPA side,” he underlined.

Natalija Ljubić (Pexapark) pointed out that last month in Germany the solar capture rate was just 40%, calling it almost unbearable for photovoltaic projects. All developers or energy producers, especially in the solar power sphere, are seriously considering adding batteries, while projects for standalone battery storage facilities are appearing, in her words.

She and Nikola Gazdov (APSTE) agreed that the outcome is a lot of interesting innovative structures, room for different solutions.

BESS with solar reduces cannibalization and increases capture rates

Ljubić said it is a challenge to maximize revenues from a battery system and make it bankable. Gazdov pointed to the dilemmas of a single company owning different assets versus a big utility combining and aggregating everything, and whether the producers or optimizers manage the revenue streams.

When it comes to standalone storage units, he sees a perspective only in arbitrage and, perhaps, system services further down the road.

Joffroy Beckers (DRI) explained the main purpose of a battery energy storage system (BESS) in Romania, from the point of view of a developer and power producer. A BESS combined with solar power reduces cannibalization and increases capture rate, whereas wind lowers the balancing cost, he stressed.

“If you co-locate a battery next to solar, you will be in a position to negotiate a higher price on the off-take side,” he pointed out.

A combination of wind, solar and batteries is equivalent to a new power plant

In the future, he anticipates more PPAs with a pay-as-nominated structure rather than pay as produced, arguing that it enables more flexibility for monetizing batteries on different markets.

“With those combinations of wind, solar, and battery, basically you have a new power plant, baseload structure,” Mislav Slade-Šilović (PwC) stated.

That way PPAs fit into the broader discussion on the energy transition and decarbonization. EPS is decarbonizing its production through its role as a renewable energy offtaker.

“Hybrid combinations are partly addressing the baseload needs. So, many different technologies, including storage, can provide a part of the answer this region heavily needs, and this is the baseload substitution problem,” Slade-Šilović concluded.