Day-ahead electricity prices climbed across Southeast Europe on 28 October, with Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania and Serbia trading around or above €300/MWh. Lower renewable availability and reduced import capacity tightened supply, while regional demand was largely unchanged. Romania posted the highest baseload price, at €311.38/MWh, up €55.90 from the previous session.
Bulgaria settled at €305.56/MWh, Hungary at €303.34/MWh and Albania at €302.05/MWh. Serbia’s SEEPEX price rose €51.00 to €292.65/MWh. The breadth of the increase points to tighter supply rather than a demand shock.
Forecast electricity consumption across Hungary and Southeast Europe stood at 33,331 MW, just 44 MW higher day on day. Solar availability was forecast to fall by 862 MW and wind by 1,355 MW, removing more than 2.2 GW of renewable supply from the regional balance. At the same time, net imports into the region slipped to 3,941 MW.
Inflow from Austria and Slovakia, the region’s core import route, fell by 725 MW to 3,625 MW. With less inexpensive generation and lower external supply available, demand that had barely changed had to be met from a tighter pool of electricity. The session’s central signal was that Southeast Europe had fewer low-cost megawatt-hours available, rather than a material increase in consumption.
Regional price pressure and forward markets
Hungary was among the markets where the tightening was most pronounced: HUPX rose €62.00 to €303.34/MWh. Germany’s price also increased sharply, gaining €94.10 to reach €249.21/MWh. The Hungarian premium over Germany narrowed to €54.13/MWh from more than €86/MWh a day earlier.
Higher prices also extended beyond the immediate day-ahead session. Hungarian Week 45 power was assessed at €307/MWh, Week 46 at €297/MWh and November at €282.50/MWh. Week 46 gained €26/MWh in one day, indicating that traders were pricing in continuing regional tightness rather than treating Wednesday’s rise as an isolated hourly event.
Fuel markets provided little indication that a sudden shift in generation costs had driven the power-price move. Austrian CEGH gas eased slightly to €97.24/MWh, EU carbon allowances were broadly stable at €88.05/t, and November coal fell. The divergence points to pressure from the electricity balance itself, including renewable output, generation availability and cross-border flows, rather than a new fuel-price shock.
Serbia moves back towards €300/MWh
Serbia’s SEEPEX baseload price settled at €292.65/MWh, up €51/MWh in one session and close to the psychologically important €300/MWh level. Peak power was tighter still at €313/MWh, while the hourly maximum reached €400/MWh. The daily minimum remained €189/MWh, showing that elevated prices extended across the curve rather than resulting only from one or two extreme hours.
Serbia remained about €10.69/MWh cheaper than Hungary, but the modest discount reflected the extent to which the Serbian market was being drawn into the Central and Eastern European price tightening. The country was a substantial net importer, with average net imports of roughly 1,192 MW, compared with about 915 MW a day earlier. Regional flow data showed imports arriving from several neighbouring systems, while northbound flows towards Hungary remained limited.
Serbia’s ability to avoid HUPX-level prices therefore depended increasingly on available cross-border capacity and supply from neighbouring markets. If those buffers tighten at the same time, SEEPEX can move towards the Hungarian and Romanian price complex quickly.
Montenegro’s prices rise as transit flows continue
Montenegro remained among the region’s cheaper markets despite a significant increase. BELEN rose €35.90 to €266.41/MWh, leaving the country almost €37/MWh below Hungary and about €26/MWh below Serbia. Its peak price reached €277.10/MWh, while the daily maximum touched €400/MWh.
Montenegro was nearly balanced in physical terms, but the net position masked much larger underlying flows. The country was drawing electricity from the western side of the system, including Italy, while sending substantial volumes towards Serbia and other Western Balkan markets. It therefore served not only as a small national electricity market but also as a cross-border transit and arbitrage corridor linking Italy, the Adriatic and the tighter Western Balkan price zone.
That role will become more important when TPP Pljevlja begins its planned maintenance outage on 31 October, reducing Montenegro’s domestic thermal buffer while regional prices are already elevated.
Greece remains below the regional price spike
Greece was the main exception to the wider price increase. HENEX rose only €7.70 to €232.57/MWh, leaving the country roughly €71/MWh below Hungary, €79/MWh below Romania and €60/MWh below Serbia. Greece exported around 2,010 MW on average, up from 1,400 MW the previous day, with particularly strong flows towards Bulgaria.
Generation in Greece was well above domestic consumption, allowing lower-priced power to flow north into Bulgaria and the wider Balkan system. The result was a pronounced geographical price split: Greece as the low-price exporting zone; Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro in the middle; and Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Albania trading near or above €300/MWh.
Across Hungary and Southeast Europe, average imports remained close to 4 GW despite regional generation of about 29.4 GW and consumption above 33.3 GW. For traders and large industrial consumers, the 28 October session showed that a major demand increase is not necessary for another regional price shock. A simultaneous drop in wind and solar output, combined with several hundred megawatts less import capacity from Central Europe, can push much of Southeast Europe rapidly towards €300-€400/MWh.
The variables to monitor include renewable forecasts, AT-SK import flows, Serbia’s import dependence, Greek export availability and Montenegro’s thermal availability after the Pljevlja outage begins. Day-ahead electricity prices reflect the combined effect of these supply and cross-border conditions across the region.