Renewable-energy valuations in South East Europe are becoming more sophisticated. A few years ago, many investors looked mainly at installed capacity, resource quality and tariff support. Today, buyers are asking harder questions: Is the project grid-secured? Is revenue contracted? Is there curtailment risk? Can storage be added? Is the asset merchant-exposed? Is the local balancing market mature?
The result is a wide valuation spread between speculative development projects and operating platforms.
Recent transactions provide useful benchmarks. TotalEnergies’ sale of 50% of a 424 MW operating wind and solar portfolio in Greece valued the full portfolio at €508 million, equivalent to around €1.2 million per installed MW. TotalEnergies retained 50% and continued to operate the assets.
EDPR’s sale of a 150 MW operating wind portfolio in Greece to Principia is another benchmark. The portfolio comprised four operating wind farms with an average asset life of about 1.5 years and 20-year Contracts for Difference. The reported enterprise value was around €200 million, implying roughly €1.3 million per MW.
PPC’s Evryo acquisition in Romania offers a larger operating-portfolio reference. PPC acquired 629 MW of operating renewables, mainly onshore wind, plus about 145 MW of pipeline assets. The transaction had an enterprise value of approximately €700 million and was expected to add about €100 million of annual EBITDA.
These deals suggest that operating contracted wind and solar portfolios in stronger SEE markets can clear around €1.1 million to €1.3 million per MW, depending on technology, revenue structure, asset age, market, financing and operating risk.
But that range should not be applied mechanically.
Masdar’s TERNA Energy transaction shows why. TERNA Energy had around 1.2 GW of operating capacity, but the enterprise value was around €3.2 billion. On a simple operating MW basis, that looks much higher than asset-level comparables. But it is not a pure MW comp. The buyer was paying for a strategic platform, development pipeline, market position, management team and pumped-hydro optionality.
That distinction is crucial. Asset transactions and platform transactions are not the same market.
An operating wind farm with a fixed revenue contract is priced like infrastructure. A development platform with a pipeline, team and grid rights is priced partly like a growth company. A strategic platform in a consolidating region may command a control premium.
For solar, valuation is becoming more complex. The PPC–Metlen framework agreement covers up to 2 GW of solar projects across Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia, with a transaction value estimated at up to €2 billion. That suggests around €1 million per MW, but the structure is a development-and-construction framework rather than a clean operating-asset sale.
The key lesson is that buyers are no longer paying for capacity alone. They are paying for de-risking.
A renewable project in SEE is worth more when it has secured grid connection, land rights, permits, bankable EPC terms, predictable offtake, low curtailment risk and credible construction schedule. It is worth less when it has only early-stage permits, unclear grid access or merchant exposure in a solar-heavy zone.
Revenue structure is especially important. Projects backed by CfDs, feed-in tariffs or strong corporate PPAs usually command better financing terms and higher valuation confidence. Romania’s CfD scheme, for example, has awarded 4.2 GW of solar and wind capacity across two auctions, exceeding the country’s 3.5 GW target under its Recovery and Resilience Plan.
Merchant exposure is not automatically negative, but it is now more nuanced. In high-volatility markets, merchant projects can capture upside. But standalone solar exposed to midday prices faces capture-price pressure as solar penetration rises. A merchant solar asset without storage or flexible offtake is therefore not the same risk as a merchant wind asset or a hybrid asset.
Storage optionality is likely to become a valuation differentiator. Bulgaria’s approval of subsidies for 82 standalone battery projects totaling about 9.71 GWh shows how quickly storage is becoming part of the regional investment map. A solar site with spare grid capacity for batteries may soon trade at a premium to an otherwise similar site without that option.
The practical valuation map for SEE looks like this:
Operating contracted wind and solar portfolios sit at the top of the asset-value range. Strategic platforms can trade far above simple MW multiples. Ready-to-build projects are valuable only if grid and permits are real. Early-stage pipelines are discounted. Merchant-only solar is becoming more difficult to underwrite unless storage, offtake or trading strategy is credible.
The shorthand is clear: MWs are cheap when they are theoretical and expensive when they are deliverable.
That is the new valuation logic in South East Europe.