Albania's energy moment: Alan Talib in Tirana with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy

By Alan Talib

CEO and Founder, NordGulf Alliance

Visit in June 2026, Tirana and the southern Riviera
Published 16 June 2026 · 3 min read

There's a particular feeling when you walk into a market and realise the capital hasn't arrived yet. I had it in June in Albania.

Standing with Eni Shtini and Henri Ndreca from T-Blocks on Albania's southern Riviera, it felt less like due diligence and more like finding a gold seam nobody has started mining.

A whole country on hydropower

Here's the part that's hard to explain. Albania runs almost entirely on hydropower. The whole country. It's now building solar, wind, and storage close to from scratch, the grid is being extended, and the rules are still being written as the first projects go in.

The government's ambition goes further than keeping the lights on. Erlind Sulo, Albania's Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Energy, said this year that Albania aims to become an electricity exporter.

In Europe, you almost never get to arrive this early. And yet the deal flow that has flooded every other corner of the continent has barely been pointed here.

The fundamentals don't explain that. The appetite doesn't either. Albania is moving toward EU membership on a real timeline, and the markets around it all re-rated in the years before they joined, not after. The window is open now.

I was fortunate to spend time with Albania's Minister of Energy and several of the people building this sector, in conversations made possible by the T-Blocks International team, who open doors most people never reach.

For Nordic companies with solar, wind, storage and grid experience, and for Gulf investors looking at emerging Europe, Albania offers something rare: the chance to arrive while the rules are still being written.

Albania is early, open, and badly underrated. I don't expect that to last.