Electricity.Trade’s review of hourly price curves across South-East Europe on 24 February 2026 indicates that volatility has moved from episodic to structural. The analysis covers HUPX, OPCOM, BSP, CROPEX, SEEPEX, BELEN and ALPEX. Across these venues, evening peak hours showed sharp price ramps. Off-peak periods recorded deep troughs, including in markets with modest daily averages.
Evening ramps and off-peak troughs across regional exchanges
In Hungary, hourly prices reached a peak of 177.5 EUR/MWh. During off-peak hours, prices fell to below 50 EUR/MWh. Similar intraday patterns were reported for Slovenia and Croatia. Peak-hour scarcity pricing intensified there while daily demand remained relatively stable.
Electricity.Trade links the intraday dynamics to RES intermittency rather than demand shocks. The report highlights that solar output declined sharply in late afternoon hours. Wind generation stayed depressed across the day. With limited storage and constrained ramping capacity in several SEE systems, gas-fired generation was identified as the marginal source during critical hours.
Fuel-driven marginality during critical hours
The same Electricity.Trade assessment describes how fuel volatility is transmitted into power prices during the most constrained periods. It attributes this effect to limited ability to shift generation output when solar falls and wind remains weak. In those conditions, gas-fired units set prices more frequently during tight hours. The result is sharper hourly movements around evening peaks.
Serbia and Montenegro: abrupt steps tied to liquidity and constraints
For Serbia and Montenegro, Electricity.Trade reports that volatility appears less clearly in absolute price levels. It is instead more evident in relative risk. The analysis points to thin order books and limited intraday liquidity as drivers of abrupt price steps rather than smooth transitions. It also notes that this pattern can conceal system stress until interconnection constraints bind.
Once interconnection constraints bind, prices adjust rapidly. Electricity.Trade describes the adjustment as violent at that stage. The report also highlights how these dynamics affect trading timing across borders. It states that intraday arbitrage opportunities increasingly come from delayed price transmission between Hungary and under-coupled SEE markets.
Cross-border timing of arbitrage windows
Traders active on Electricity.Trade desks report that evening peaks in Hungary often precede late adjustments in Serbia and Montenegro. This creates narrow but repeatable trading windows based on the timing of hourly curve movements. The pattern reflects differences in how quickly prices respond across interconnected systems. Electricity.Trade frames this as an operational feature of the current hourly volatility profile.
Electricity.Trade concludes that hourly price curves have become the primary indicator of system tightness in SEE. It says daily averages no longer capture risk adequately under the current conditions. The report adds that participants relying only on flat price exposure face increasing volatility and imbalance risk.
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