Germany’s expansion of power infrastructure is increasing demand for engineering capacity, creating opportunities for Serbian firms with experience in substations, transmission lines and power-system design. The energy transition requires new substations, reinforced transmission corridors and updated protection and control systems as renewable generation is connected and ageing infrastructure is replaced. At the same time, Germany faces shortages of engineers, crowded project pipelines and increasingly extensive approval requirements.
Serbia offers an established engineering base, lower costs and experience in power systems, civil structures and overhead-line design. Its proximity to Germany also allows frequent travel and project coordination, while its technical environment has been shaped by European standards.
Engineering work can cross borders while accountability remains controlled
A potential operating model would transfer part of the engineering workload to Serbia while retaining final verification and engineering responsibility within Germany. The legal and regulatory framework, however, does not reduce the process to obtaining a German engineer’s signature. Germany has no single nationwide equivalent of the US professional-engineer stamp covering every electrical drawing. The authority required depends on the document, federal state and approval process.
Structural calculations, building submissions and fire-safety documentation can require registered designers or independent checking engineers. Electrical engineering is frequently governed through company responsibility, contractual appointments, network-operator approvals and compliance with VDE rules. Under Section 49 of Germany’s Energy Industry Act, energy installations must be safe and comply with the generally recognised rules of technology. Following VDE technical rules provides a presumption that this requirement has been satisfied.
The framework does not require every calculation to be performed in Germany. It does require the organisation releasing the design to demonstrate how the applicable requirements were satisfied. A Serbian engineering contractor could therefore prepare equipment layouts, cable schedules, protection drawings, bills of quantities, tower calculations, line profiles and foundation designs, as well as specialist technical analyses. The German or EU prime contractor would retain responsibility for establishing the design basis, identifying applicable standards and national annexes, coordinating with authorities and network operators and controlling final document release.
Design control requires integrated project management
The Serbian engineering team would need to function as part of a controlled design organisation rather than as an independent drawing-production operation. A robust process would assign an originator, checker and approver to every deliverable and identify a statutory signatory where required. Projects would also need controlled registers covering German legislation, DIN and VDE standards, German national annexes and network-operator requirements.
Software used for calculations and its versions would need approval, while design inputs would require identified owners and documented status. Native calculation files would remain available to the responsible engineering organisation rather than being retained only as exported PDFs.
Project management and quality management would need separate functions. The project-management structure would cover scope, resources, schedules, interfaces and commercial changes through deliverable registers, integrated programmes, responsibility matrices, interface registers and decision logs. Technical quality management would address competence, checking, compliance, configuration and supporting evidence, with an independent escalation route and the authority to stop document release. A scheduling problem would therefore not eliminate a required technical review.
The degree of checking could vary according to technical risk. Routine schedules and drawing revisions could undergo self-checking and sample reviews, while equipment sizing and control schematics would require documented peer review and German discipline review. Higher-risk work involving tower stability, foundations, earthing safety, short-circuit forces and protection settings could require independent verification and, in some cases, separate calculations.
Lower Serbian costs do not guarantee lower project costs
Nearshoring could allow German engineering companies to access additional capacity without waiting to recruit equivalent numbers of specialists locally. Engineering teams could work simultaneously across projects and disciplines, while standardised packages could be deployed across programmes involving multiple substations or transmission lines. The commercial benefit depends on more than the Serbian subcontractor’s hourly rate. Lower labour costs can be offset by incomplete information, repeated technical reviews, translation issues and poorly controlled interfaces.
Organisational separation can itself generate rework when Serbian engineers work from assumptions that differ from those used by German project managers, equipment suppliers or network operators. The relevant commercial measure is therefore the total cost of accepted engineering, rather than the subcontractor’s nominal hourly price. Procurement rules also affect how Serbian engineering companies can participate in German and EU utility projects. A Serbian bidder may not have the same rights as an operator from an EU member state or from a country covered by a reciprocal procurement agreement.
The European Court of Justice’s 2024 Kolin judgment confirmed that operators from non-covered third countries cannot automatically claim equal treatment under the EU utilities procurement directive.
Using a German or EU prime contractor can provide a more practical structure, but subcontracting arrangements must remain transparent. Tender requirements may require disclosure of subcontractors, evidence of their competence and approval of subsequent changes. Security-sensitive grid information may also be subject to contractual or regulatory restrictions. An EU prime contractor cannot use a Serbian subcontractor to circumvent requirements that would apply to a direct Serbian bidder.
Pilot projects could establish cross-border engineering capacity
A phased approach would begin with qualification of the Serbian partner’s personnel, systems, references and insurance arrangements. The German company could then assign a defined pilot package with measurable acceptance criteria. Expansion would follow only after evaluating first-pass quality, rework, communication costs and how effectively the Serbian team responds to review comments.
Successful pilot work could develop into a binational engineering organisation using common templates, shared software environments and permanent discipline leads. The resulting benefit would extend beyond lower-cost production to an engineering platform capable of supporting multiple projects. Contracts would need to require delivery of editable models and calculation files, preservation of project records, audit access and approval before further subcontracting. Intellectual-property provisions would have to allow the asset owner to operate and modify infrastructure throughout its lifetime.
Professional indemnity insurance would also need to cover the relevant territory, activities and subcontracted work. Cybersecurity is another requirement because substation layouts, protection settings, network models and control-system architecture constitute sensitive infrastructure information. Access would need to be classified, restricted and logged. The ability to transfer a file across borders would not by itself establish that the transfer was authorised. Germany’s grid expansion therefore creates a potential market for Serbian engineering capacity, but the model depends on maintaining a single design basis, controlled configuration and clearly documented engineering authority across the two countries.
