South East Europe’s power markets are entering a more sophisticated phase. The next two years will be defined by deeper exchange liquidity, more intraday trading, wider use of 15-minute pricing, growing battery participation, continued cross-border constraints and heavier compliance requirements.
The base case for 2026–2028 is not full convergence. It is partial integration with persistent volatility.
EU SEE markets will become more aligned with European market design. Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia and Slovenia are already part of the wider EU coupling architecture. The EU’s move to 15-minute day-ahead trading from 30 September 2025 will make price signals more granular and increase the value of flexibility.
Western Balkan markets will continue to develop, but at different speeds. Serbia is the key market because of SEEPEX, negative prices, its central geography and its role in regional flows. Albania and Kosovo have a coupled day-ahead market through ALPEX. North Macedonia has launched intraday trading through MEMO. Bosnia and Herzegovina remains the largest missing piece in organized market development.
Market coupling will progress, but not instantly. The Energy Community said in December 2025 that the earliest market coupling for Contracting Parties could be expected in 2028, subject to verification of compliance by the European Commission. That means traders should plan for several more years of hybrid market conditions: some coupled borders, some explicit borders and uneven liquidity.
Price volatility will remain a core feature. ACER’s Southeast Europe monitoring shows that limited cross-zonal capacity and insufficient system flexibility were central to regional stress events. As solar grows, the region will likely see more low-price or negative midday periods and more valuable evening flexibility.
Batteries will begin to change price shapes, but they will not eliminate spreads. Storage deployment will reduce some intraday extremes, but cross-border constraints, hydro variability, heatwaves, gas prices and CBAM will continue to create volatility.
CBAM will remain one of the biggest uncertainties for Western Balkan-EU electricity trade. In Q1 2026, commercially scheduled exchanges between the EU and Western Balkans fell by 25%, and Energy Community Contracting Party day-ahead prices were on average €30/MWh below neighboring EU markets. Unless origin, transit and carbon-accounting rules become clearer, some economic flows may remain commercially unattractive.
The winners in this outlook will be sophisticated traders, integrated utilities, battery optimizers, hydro managers, flexible consumers and exchanges that deepen liquidity.
The losers will be participants that rely on simple baseload views, weak compliance systems, undercapitalized trading books or merchant-only renewable exposure without shape-risk management.
For traders, the winning model will combine weather forecasting, cross-border capacity expertise, quarter-hour optimization, REMIT controls, CBAM documentation and collateral discipline.
For utilities, trading will become a portfolio-optimization function. Generation, supply, PPAs, storage, balancing and cross-border positions must be managed together.
For renewable developers, market assumptions need to include negative prices, capture-price risk, imbalance exposure and basis risk. A project’s revenue will depend not only on how much it produces, but when and where it produces.
For industrial buyers, procurement must move beyond annual baseload thinking. The key risks will be hourly and quarter-hourly shape, evening peak exposure, solar PPA mismatch and index basis.
For regulators, the priorities are clear: accelerate market coupling, increase usable cross-zonal capacity, improve balancing markets, clarify storage rules, strengthen REMIT enforcement and reduce CBAM-related trade distortions.
South East Europe will not become a simple, perfectly integrated power market by 2028. But it will become more transparent, more liquid and more investable. It will also become more technically demanding.
The region’s trading value will sit in five dimensions: time, location, flexibility, carbon and compliance.
That is the new SEE power-market outlook: more exchange trading, more cross-border complexity, more volatility, and more reward for those who can manage all three.
