TI BiH: Systemic corruption prevents development of renewable energy sector

Sarajevo, February 5, 2026. year – “Systemic corruption and non-transparent occupation of grid capacities by privileged investors have directly pushed numerous citizens out of the energy transition and prevented investments in electricity production from renewable energy sources” is the key message from the conference dedicated to corruption prevention in this field, organized today in Sarajevo by Transparency International in BiH.

The analysis presented by TI BiH showed that in recent years, numerous privileged investors have occupied available dynamic quotas, negotiated high purchase prices, and received incentives from funds collected from citizens through electricity bills. The extent to which the struggle for quotas has paid off is demonstrated by the fact that privileged investors who entered the system earlier receive almost six times higher incentives for the same amount of electricity produced than other producers. In the Federation of BiH, only one producer receives about 20% of the total incentives paid annually, and large investors in this field have largely reserved capacities and pushed out small producers.

Corruption risks in this field have now shifted to the grid connection process, where non-transparent capacity reservation for fictitious projects and lack of state planning create new “bottlenecks” that block fair competition and market access. The problem of fictitious projects that “reserve” grid capacities for years by those with privileged information is particularly emphasized, which directly blocks serious investments and threatens the stability of the entire system.

Furthermore, the new entity laws regulating electricity production from renewable sources have not fully resolved the problem of artificial project fragmentation, where large solar parks are divided on paper into numerous small power plants to avoid concluding concession agreements and entering a more favorable incentive system.

To stop this degradation of the sector, conference participants emphasized that the solution lies in urgently introducing aggregation rules into entity laws on renewable energy sources, whereby all connected projects would be treated as one unified facility. This would force investors to assume concession obligations and pay a realistic price for resource use.

Finally, complete digitalization of the process and publication of transparent waiting lists and grid capacities are possible ways to prevent corruption in this field that can protect public interest, bring direct benefits to a greater number of citizens, and enable BiH to achieve strategic goals of increasing electricity production from renewable energy sources.

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