Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania cleared power prices close to €300/MWh on 4 November, keeping Southeast European prices above western European levels despite expanding renewable capacity. Constrained firm generation, transmission limits and scarce flexibility during peak demand hours underpinned the premium.
Solar output is concentrated around midday and falls ahead of the evening demand peak, while wind generation can swing by several gigawatts from one day to the next. Hydro availability has also been weak in several Balkan power systems.
Romania has been operating without both Cernavodă reactors because of low water levels on the Danube. Bulgaria has one Kozloduy unit out for scheduled maintenance until the end of November.
The overlap of weak hydro availability and the unavailable Romanian and Bulgarian units increases the region’s need for imports, while Hungary is structurally dependent on imports as well. Cross-border capacity is becoming as important as generation capacity for Southeast European markets.
ACER’s 2026 market-integration review showed widening price differences between bidding zones. Congestion-management costs across the EU reached €5.4 billion in 2025, up from €4.3 billion in 2024, and ACER argues that more cross-zonal capacity, intraday trading and balancing integration are needed as renewable penetration increases.
The regional price premium illustrates how market-integration improvements can lag generation build-out. Fuel and carbon costs also leave gas-fired generation capable of setting high prices: at the end of October, Austrian CEGH gas was around €100/MWh, Q1 2027 gas was around €98.5/MWh and EU carbon allowances were close to €89/t.
With those costs, a gas-fired plant setting the marginal power price can require wholesale electricity prices above €200/MWh before scarcity premia are added. Renewable output can reduce the number of hours in which gas sets the price without removing expensive marginal pricing altogether.
For investors, the market is shifting from a capacity question to an hourly-value question. A solar plant producing during saturated midday hours does not have the same value as a wind farm with a broader daily production profile, a battery shifting energy into the evening or a pumped-storage plant with multi-hour duration.
For corporate power purchase agreements, an MWh’s value depends on delivery timing and whether the contract includes shaping, balancing or storage. Returning nuclear capacity and improved hydro inflows could ease prices through winter, but the outcome remains weather dependent; cold conditions, weak wind and limited imports would leave Southeast Europe exposed to renewed scarcity prices.
