If Georgia completes the Black Sea submarine cable to Romania, the country could earn around €6 billion per year by exporting electricity to Europe, according to Giorgi Margebadze, head of the Small and Medium Hydropower Plants Association. He noted on BMGTV that Georgia’s combined hydro, wind, and solar potential reaches up to 50 billion kWh annually, making large-scale exports a realistic long-term opportunity.
Margebadze stressed that the main obstacle to harnessing this potential is Georgia’s outdated energy infrastructure. Developers frequently face connection issues, as most regional substations lack the capacity to transmit additional power. He noted that communication with local communities has improved significantly, but the grid remains the biggest barrier.
According to him, even well-prepared projects, those with secured financing and completed technical studies, often stall because substations cannot accept new capacity or transmission lines cannot carry the generated energy. “Our infrastructure is very old, and this has become the primary bottleneck in every region and almost every village,” Margebadze said.
Georgia’s current energy balance also highlights the challenge. In December 2025, the country imported 300 million kWh of electricity from all neighboring states. Electricity generation has fallen to its lowest level since 2021: in 2025, Georgia produced 13.8 billion kWh, down 3% year-over-year, while consumption increased to 14.8 billion kWh.
