Europe’s energy transition is entering a more sophisticated phase. The bold targets and ambitious timelines that defined its early momentum are now being refined in light of real-world experience – grid stability, economic competitiveness, and geopolitical opportunity are all shaping a more nuanced approach. The conversation has matured from whether to transition, to how – with what tools, at what pace, and under whose leadership.
For Hristo Kovachki, Bulgarian energy entrepreneur and Doctor of Technical Sciences, the answer to those questions requires something that policy frameworks alone cannot provide: vision. Not the kind that produces strategy documents, but the kind that understands energy systems from the inside – their physics, their economics, and their long-term consequences.
A Step Forward, or Slightly to Side
Kovachki reads the evolution of the European Green Deal with calibrated optimism. European leaders, in his assessment, are making a meaningful push toward clean energy and environmental sustainability – and the most important recent development is the clear acknowledgment that these goals go hand in hand with economic competitiveness. The revised approach is, as he puts it, not a step backward but a step forward and slightly to the side – a pragmatic adjustment that reflects the complexity of the moment and strengthens rather than dilutes the overall ambition.
Programs like “Fit for 55” remain valuable precisely because they function as drivers of change – signals that shift investment behaviour and accelerate decisions that markets might otherwise defer. Kovachki’s view is that Europe is finding the right balance between ambition and readiness, and that the updated strategic direction is stronger for it.
For Bulgaria specifically, this recalibration carries concrete implications. The clearest is the explicit elevation of nuclear and gas energy alongside renewables – a recognition that the energy system is most resilient when built on a diversified foundation. Natural gas, long treated as a transitional compromise, is being reframed as a core component of a stable energy mix. Kovachki has argued this for years. That the European framework is now reflecting it validates an approach that was once considered insufficiently ambitious.
The Case for a National Strategy
One of the more revealing observations Kovachki makes concerns the current shape of Bulgaria’s energy investment landscape. Solar parks, wind projects, battery storage, hydrogen initiatives – the conversations about these technologies have been frequent and the investment activity real. What makes this moment particularly important, in his view, is the opportunity to channel that momentum through a coherent national framework.
The Pillars of a Sustainable System
When Kovachki maps out what a well-constructed Bulgarian energy system should look like, nuclear energy comes first. The progress at Kozloduy is, in his assessment, the right move – a reinforcement of an existing strategic asset that Bulgaria has operated and built deep expertise around for decades. The logical next step, in his view, is small modular reactors, particularly those being developed by Westinghouse, whose growing interest across Europe makes them an increasingly realistic near-term proposition.
Gas capacity forms the second pillar. Battery storage has a role in system balancing. Renewables – solar and wind – are attracting serious investor interest and will continue to grow. All of these elements, however, work best within a framework that prioritises security of supply alongside installed capacity. Conventional power plants that provide reliable baseload generation are, in Kovachki’s framing, the foundation that makes the broader system coherent and resilient.
On coal, his position is pragmatic rather than sentimental. With the right technological adaptation, existing plants can operate on natural gas or biofuels, extending their functional life during the transition without locking in long-term emissions. This is not a defence of coal as a permanent feature of the energy mix – it is an argument for managing the transition with enough flexibility to maintain reliability throughout.
The Technology Partnership Imperative
Underlying all of this is a conviction about the importance of choosing the right partners and the right technologies. Kovachki is consistent on this point: competitive economies are built through the application of proven innovations. In the energy sector, that means working with companies that have demonstrated expertise at scale – organisations like Westinghouse, whose track record in nuclear technology gives them credibility that newer entrants cannot yet match.
The United States figures prominently in his vision for how Bulgaria should position itself internationally. American LNG supply is part of it – a diversification tool that strengthens supply resilience. But the partnership extends further. American technology companies, particularly in energy and clean tech, represent a depth of expertise that Bulgaria would benefit from engaging systematically and strategically.
Kovachki frames this as economic logic as much as geopolitical alignment. The global economy is shifting fast, and the countries that navigate the transition most successfully will be those with access to the best technologies and the most capable partners. Economics, as he sees it, is a universal language – and one through which Bulgaria has a genuine opportunity to build mutually beneficial, long-term relationships.
The Visionary Requirement
What makes Kovachki’s perspective distinctive is not any single policy position but the frame through which he approaches the whole question. Energy transition, in his reading, is fundamentally a leadership opportunity. The decisions being made now – which technologies to back, which partners to engage, which national assets to develop and transform – will shape Bulgaria’s economic trajectory for decades.
That kind of decision-making, he argues, calls for visionaries at the helm of the sector: people who understand the technical realities, the geopolitical dynamics, and the long-term value of choices that will compound over time. The restructuring of Bulgaria’s energy sector is, in this sense, inseparable from the broader question of whether the country can position itself as a genuinely competitive economy within the European and global landscape.
It is a high bar – and precisely the right one to aim for.
