Southeast Europe’s intraday electricity market is becoming more important as wind, solar and short-term system imbalances increase the need to adjust positions close to physical delivery.
Serbia’s August trading data illustrates both the opportunity and the market’s current limitations.
Intraday volume on SEEPEX totalled only around 4,880 MWh during the month, tiny compared with more than 547,000 MWh traded on the day-ahead market.
Liquidity remains shallow.
But where trading occurred was revealing.
The average daily volume-weighted intraday price reached €178.21/MWh, significantly above the August day-ahead baseload average of €136.70/MWh.
Activity became concentrated around the evening scarcity period.
Approximately 669 MWh changed hands for hour 19-20 at an average weighted price of around €299.8/MWh.
Hour 20-21 recorded approximately 685 MWh at €291/MWh, while hour 21-22 saw around 681.5 MWh at €262.7/MWh.
For generators and suppliers, this creates a growing cost for forecast errors.
A wind farm producing less than nominated, a solar portfolio facing cloud-driven deviations or a supplier encountering unexpected demand may need to close those positions at prices materially above day-ahead levels.
That places forecasting quality and market access directly inside the operating economics of renewable assets.
The market structure is now beginning to evolve around that requirement.
In late August, ADEX announced plans for a common intraday continuous environment covering Hungary, Serbia and Slovenia, using a unified M7 trading setup.
Testing is scheduled ahead of expected implementation during autumn 2026.
The change could deepen regional liquidity by allowing participants to correct positions using supply and demand across several interconnected systems rather than relying primarily on local counterparties.
It could also support more sophisticated portfolio management.
A trading portfolio spanning Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia could increasingly be optimised across borders rather than managed as separate national books.
For traders such as GEN-I, Axpo, EFT, Statkraft, Alpiq and Danske Commodities, that enlarges the opportunity set.
For renewable developers, it raises the operational standard.
Forecasting, nomination management, automated trading and balancing strategy are becoming increasingly important to realised project revenue.
The commercial distinction between a well-managed renewable portfolio and an unmanaged merchant plant is therefore likely to widen.
