Day-ahead electricity prices across Southeast Europe diverged sharply for delivery on Tuesday, September 8, as stronger solar generation pushed down midday prices while Italy and parts of the Western Balkans continued to trade at significant premiums.
Hungary’s HUPX baseload price was broadly stable at €176.58/MWh, with Romania following closely at €176.65/MWh. Serbia declined by €12.2/MWh to €178.33/MWh, while Montenegro recorded a sharp €51.4/MWh increase to €192.33/MWh. Albania rose by €14.1/MWh to €182.25/MWh. Greece and Bulgaria remained considerably cheaper, averaging €145.93/MWh and €157.98/MWh, respectively. Italy continued to command the strongest premium in the region at €224.46/MWh, creating a €78.53/MWh spread between Greece and Italy and leaving Italy €47.88/MWh above Hungary.
The widening geographic price spread emerged despite relatively balanced regional fundamentals. Electricity demand across SEE and Hungary was forecast at 31.47 GW, approximately 827 MW higher day on day, while solar generation was expected to increase by more than 2 GW to 7.98 GW. Wind generation remained broadly stable at 2.33 GW. The region was still a net importer of around 1.26 GW, with inflows from Austria and Slovakia increasing to 2.19 GW, while approximately 1.45 GW continued to flow toward Italy.
This market configuration underlines the growing importance of cross-border transmission constraints. Strong solar availability was enough to significantly depress prices during the middle of the day, but it failed to eliminate the premium associated with westbound transmission capacity toward Italy or the local premiums emerging in parts of the Western Balkans.
Hungary provides a clear example of the growing intraday volatility. HUPX prices dropped to just €25/MWh in hour 13 before surging to €297.1/MWh in hour 20. As a result, the baseload average of €176.58/MWh masked an intraday price swing of more than €270/MWh.
Comparable solar-driven price troughs were visible across several other markets. Greece reached €0/MWh, while Bulgaria fell to €20.2/MWh, before both markets climbed above €260/MWh during the evening ramp. Croatia followed a similar pattern, falling to €28.1/MWh before rising as high as €304.5/MWh.
The Western Balkans displayed a markedly different price profile. Serbia’s minimum price remained at €96/MWh, with a maximum of €284.1/MWh, while Montenegro did not fall below €150/MWh and reached €270/MWh. The solar-driven midday discount therefore remained much less pronounced in Serbia and Montenegro than in Greece, Bulgaria and several Central European markets.
Serbia was nevertheless among the clearest bearish movers of the day. Its net import requirement narrowed to approximately 458 MW, from 578 MW a day earlier, as average generation increased to 3.07 GW from 2.91 GW. Generation growth outpaced the rise in demand, which reached 3.53 GW from 3.49 GW. Serbia continued to receive electricity from several neighboring markets while maintaining exports toward Montenegro, reducing its premium over HUPX to just €1.75/MWh.
Montenegro moved in the opposite direction. BELEN’s €192.33/MWh settlement placed the market €15.75/MWh above Hungary. Montenegro remained a net importer of approximately 105 MW, even as average flows toward Italy reached roughly 503 MW. Imports from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia therefore effectively supported both domestic demand and continued exports through the Adriatic corridor. This combination helps explain why Montenegro maintained a substantial local premium despite significantly lower prices in other SEE markets.
Forward electricity prices also strengthened. Hungarian Week 38 power increased by €6.5/MWh to €181/MWh, while Week 39 gained €5/MWh to €188/MWh. October power rose by €3.5/MWh to €188/MWh. CEGH gas prices climbed to €75.06/MWh, while EU carbon allowances increased to €84.74/tonne. Coal prices edged lower.
The latest market signals increasingly point to hourly and geographic exposure rather than regional baseload averages as the key factor shaping power-market risk. Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia all clustered around €176-179/MWh on a baseload basis, but these averages concealed midday prices near zero or in the €20-30/MWh range in several markets, followed by evening prices approaching or exceeding €300/MWh.
With Italy continuing to draw roughly 1.45 GW from the region while more than 2.1 GW enters SEE and Hungary from the Central European core, transmission capacity, energy storage and flexible generation are becoming increasingly valuable. The September 8 price curve once again demonstrates why a flat baseload hedge is becoming a weaker proxy for the actual physical exposure faced by generators, traders and large industrial consumers across Southeast Europe.
