Professor Dimitar Dimitrov tells pv magazine that while a new permitting regime has temporarily slowed development, a multi-gigawatt pipeline of solar and storage projects points to a sharp acceleration once regulatory and grid constraints are resolved.
There is strong investor interest in North Macedonia, with a project pipeline far exceeding the country’s existing solar fleet.
North Macedonia installed around 210 MW of solar last year, taking its cumulative solar capacity past the 1 GW threshold. Under the country’s 2026 annual energy construction plan, the Ministry of Energy, Mining and Mineral Resources has approved 59 solar projects with a combined capacity of over 3 GW.
Professor Dimitar Dimitrov, from the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje and Macedonian solar association Solar Macedonia, told pv magazine during the Smarter E event in Munich, Germany, that the construction plan approved a total 4.4 GW of new power projects.
Approvals in this year’s plan represent a sharp increase on the approvals from the 2025 annual plan, which featured 1.2 GW of power plants, including 812 MW of solar.
