South-east European day-ahead power prices fell sharply for Friday delivery, with a substantial increase in renewable availability and a major improvement in Romania’s balance easing the tightness that had driven much of the region higher earlier in the week. Serbia was the clear outlier, falling more than €40/MWh to trade around €25/MWh below Hungary, while Italy remained detached at a premium above €50/MWh to the central SEE cluster.
Hungary’s HUPX day-ahead baseload settled at €152.14/MWh, down €19.50/MWh day on day. Romania fell €21.50 to €153.13/MWh, Bulgaria dropped €19.60 to €152.78/MWh and Greece lost €20.40 to €152.87/MWh. Slovenia, Croatia, Albania and North Macedonia also converged tightly around €152-153.5/MWh.
The result effectively produced a regional price plateau stretching from Albania and Greece through Bulgaria and Romania into Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia. The main exceptions were Serbia at €127.11/MWh, down €40.90/MWh, and Montenegro at €164.06/MWh, which eased only €1.90/MWh. Serbia consequently traded at a €25.04/MWh discount to HUPX, while Montenegro retained an €11.92/MWh premium. Italy remained by far the highest-priced neighbouring market at €205.52/MWh, around €53.38/MWh above Hungary.
The Friday correction was notable because regional demand did not weaken materially. Combined HU+SEE consumption was forecast at 34.19 GW, up about 168 MW day on day. Instead, the market experienced a supply-side easing. Net regional imports dropped from 2.43 GW to 1.57 GW, while imports from the central European core through Austria and Slovakia declined by about 850 MW to 2.62 GW. At the same time, commercial exports towards Italy increased slightly to around 1.55 GW.
Renewables were the most immediate bearish component. Solar availability was forecast at approximately 8.14 GW, an increase of 1.71 GW from the previous session, while wind forecasts rose by another 1.36 GW to 3 GW. That represents more than 3 GW of additional variable renewable supply entering the regional balance within a day, enough to materially change the marginal generation stack even with consumption broadly stable.
The price profiles underline that effect. HUPX baseload averaged €152.10/MWh, but the peak contract was only €124/MWh, against an off-peak average of €180.30/MWh. The hourly minimum fell to €67.10/MWh in hour 13, while the maximum reached €225.80/MWh in hour 22. The roughly €159/MWh difference between the midday trough and late-evening high illustrates how increasingly important solar production has become for intraday price formation in the region.
Romania was arguably the most important cross-border fundamental behind Friday’s wider correction. Its system moved from an average net import position of 910 MW on Thursday to a net export position of 586 MW on Friday. Total generation increased from 4.92 GW to 6.20 GW, while consumption eased from 5.83 GW to 5.61 GW. The combined effect improved Romania’s daily power balance by almost 1.5 GW.
That change was transmitted directly into Hungary. The Romania-Hungary border switched from flows towards Romania on Thursday to an average 616 MW from Romania towards Hungary on Friday. During peak hours, the Romanian export flow towards Hungary reached an average 1.45 GW, compared with a reverse average flow of 219 MW the previous day.
The reversal helps explain one of the session’s most important pricing changes: the collapse in the Hungary-Germany day-ahead spread. Germany rose to €143.55/MWh, while HUPX fell to €152.14/MWh, compressing the HU-DE spread to just €8.59/MWh from around €46/MWh previously. The spread contracted by approximately €37.5/MWh in one session.
Hungary nevertheless remained an importer on a daily-average basis. Consumption was forecast at 4.67 GW, down from 4.85 GW, while generation slipped from 3.94 GW to 3.71 GW, leaving the country with a net import requirement of about 959 MW, slightly above Thursday’s 915 MW. But the composition of those imports changed significantly, with stronger Romanian supply complementing large inflows from Slovakia and allowing Hungary to supply Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia through portions of the day.
The hourly picture was particularly revealing. Romania supplied Hungary heavily during the daytime solar period, while Hungarian peak-hour flows towards Austria also reversed direction. Across the full day, Hungary remained a net importer from Austria, but during peak hours it exported an average 448 MW towards the Austrian market. Hungary also exported about 1 GW on average towards Croatia and 564 MW towards Slovenia.
Bulgaria added another bearish element. Generation increased from 4.58 GW to 5.18 GW, while consumption rose from 3.61 GW to 4.04 GW. The generation increase nevertheless outweighed the additional load, lifting Bulgaria’s average export position from 976 MW to 1.14 GW. Exports towards Greece strengthened particularly sharply, rising to 611 MW baseload, while the peak flow switched from an average 142 MW from Greece towards Bulgaria on Thursday to almost 500 MW from Bulgaria towards Greece on Friday.
Those additional Romanian and Bulgarian exports helped pull the eastern SEE markets into unusually tight convergence. Romania, Bulgaria and Greece differed by less than €0.40/MWh, while all three were within roughly €1/MWh of HUPX.
Serbia moved in the opposite direction. SEEPEX baseload plunged from €168/MWh to €127.10/MWh, while the peak average dropped to just €108.80/MWh. The minimum price reached €69/MWh around hour 13 and the daily maximum was only €170/MWh, substantially below neighbouring exchanges.
Serbia’s underlying balance did improve. Consumption fell from 3.90 GW to 3.79 GW, generation increased from 3.25 GW to 3.37 GW, and the system’s net import requirement consequently declined from 650 MW to 415 MW.
But that roughly 235 MW improvement in the Serbian balance appears insufficient on its own to explain a €40.90/MWh day-on-day price collapse and a €25/MWh discount to almost every neighbouring organised market. The magnitude of the divergence points instead to a combination of domestic bidding conditions, available cross-border capacity and the limited ability of the Serbian market to arbitrage completely against the surrounding coupled price area.
Serbia was still importing significant volumes from neighbouring systems. Average Romanian supply towards Serbia increased to 197 MW, with peak-hour flows reaching 485 MW, while Bulgaria supplied around 151 MW baseload and Hungary around 108 MW. Serbia simultaneously exported around 182 MW towards Montenegro.
The result is an unusual configuration: Serbia was a net importer but nevertheless became the cheapest market in the wider region. That makes the SEEPEX-HUPX spread one of the more significant trading signals for the next session. A rapid Serbian recoupling would offer substantial upside from Friday’s depressed level, while continued congestion or locally abundant offers could maintain a structural discount despite stronger neighbouring prices.
Montenegro occupied the opposite end of the SEE spectrum. BELEN baseload remained at €164.06/MWh, almost €12/MWh over HUPX and nearly €37/MWh over Serbia. The country’s load increased to 493 MW, generation reached about 350 MW, and Montenegro remained a net importer of roughly 144 MW.
At the same time, commercial flows towards Italy reached around 600 MW, reflecting the continuing pull from the much more expensive Italian market. Italy’s national baseload remained around €205.50/MWh, with peak power at €205/MWh and off-peak at €206.10/MWh. The Italian market therefore displayed almost none of the solar-driven price compression visible across Hungary and the eastern SEE exchanges.
The broader HU+SEE region exported around 1.55 GW towards Italy, even while importing 2.62 GW from Austria and Slovakia. The structure effectively leaves SEE acting as a transmission corridor between cheaper central/eastern European supply and the persistent Italian premium.
Forward markets meanwhile gave little indication that traders viewed Friday’s spot correction as the beginning of a broader price collapse. Hungarian Week 36 power rose €5/MWh to €159.50/MWh, September gained €3 to €166/MWh and the Calendar 2026 contract increased €1 to €133.50/MWh. The Week 36 HU-DE forward spread remained substantial at €38.50/MWh. CEGH gas was also stronger at €68.18/MWh, while EUA prices were broadly stable around €82.42/t.
That divergence between a sharply weaker spot market and firmer Hungarian prompt forwards suggests Friday’s move was predominantly a weather, renewable-output and cross-border-flow event rather than a fuel-driven repricing.
The next directional signal will therefore come from renewable revisions and Romanian flows. If the additional solar and wind supply persists, midday prices should remain vulnerable and the large peak/off-peak inversion could continue. But the evening curve remains considerably tighter: HUPX still reached more than €225/MWh after sunset despite the much lower daily average.
For regional traders, three spreads now stand out. The first is SEEPEX-HUPX, following Serbia’s exceptional €25/MWh discount. The second is HUPX-Germany, which has compressed from more than €46/MWh to below €9/MWh in a single day. The third is the western SEE-Italy premium, still above €50/MWh and continuing to pull exports towards the Adriatic corridor. Together they show a market that has become cheaper but not uniformly looser: additional renewables have removed much of the regional scarcity premium, while transmission constraints and Italy’s structurally higher price continue to create large tradable differences between neighbouring zones.
