Companies no longer to be prosumers but active electricity buyers from 2026

Legal entities in Serbia will no longer be able to become prosumers (buyers-producers) of electricity as before, but will have to meet the status of active buyers according to the amendments to the Energy Law.

Until now, legal entities in the register of prosumers of Elektrodistribucija Srbije have been listed as other buyers-producers, including companies, state institutions, public institutions, faculties, schools, kindergartens, churches and religious communities. In total, there were slightly less than 1,650 of them at the end of 2025 with an installed capacity of almost 90 megawatts.

According to the new regulations, legal entities that want to install electricity production capacities will also have to take into account electricity trading - which they will not be able to do independently, and they will also be required to balance the system.

What is an active buyer?

The institution of active buyer was introduced in the Serbian energy sector by amendments to the Energy Law in 2024, according to which an active buyer is an end consumer or a group of consumers who act together, use or store electricity produced within their facilities, or sell it independently and participate in flexibility services and energy efficiency measures - where these activities are not their core business.

The main purpose of an active buyer, as well as a buyer-producer (prosumer), is to accelerate the transition to a greener energy mix - through investments by both industry and households.

An active buyer has the right to participate in the electricity market directly or through an aggregator, to sell excess electricity produced, use it for their own needs, participate in flexibility services and energy efficiency schemes and to entrust third parties with the construction and management of facilities. The system operator will keep records of active buyers based on their request.

Renewable energy consultant Dejan Stojadinovic tells Biznis.rs that one of the important characteristics of legal entities that become active buyers is that they become responsible for balancing the system, i.e. they become a balance-responsible party.

– An active buyer will have to sell all the surplus they produce on the market, and will not be able to deliver the surplus to the network and withdraw energy from the network as before. These two things will be like two separate flows – they will receive a bill for everything they consume from the network, and they will sell all the surplus they produce to someone – he explains.

The challenge is that an active buyer will not be able to access the electricity market independently, but must use the services of an aggregator, and there is only one company registered for these jobs in Serbia. On the other hand, this service will be paid for, as will the balancing service, which means that legal entities producing electricity will have additional costs.

As for the almost 1,650 legal entities already in the register, Stojadinovic assumes that they will continue to operate on the basis of a contract with EPS Snabdevanje, which purchases their electricity, until the contract expires. After that, they will probably also have to become active buyers, although that part is not yet completely clear.

Differences between prosumers and active customers

• A producer-buyer must have their own electricity generation from renewable sources, while an active buyer may, but does not have to have one
• A prosumer is obliged to deliver excess energy to the electricity system, while an active buyer does not have this obligation
• A producer-buyer is primarily intended for households and small commercial consumers with installations up to 10 kW, while an active buyer may have a production facility and can independently sell the produced energy on the market
• A prosumer is free from complex market procedures and balancing responsibility, which is transferred to its supplier. Active buyers have greater financial and administrative capacity and bear balancing responsibility themselves and decide how to use the excess energy – either by selling on the market, through a contract or on the exchange
• Unlike a producer-buyer, an active buyer cannot use excess energy to reduce their bill through net metering or net billing

Elektrodistribucija Srbije d.o.o. Beograd

Dejan Stojadinović

prosumers

active buyers