Southeast European day-ahead electricity prices rebounded strongly on Sept. 28 as weekday demand recovered and cross-border flows shifted towards higher-priced western markets. Serbia remained the region’s main pricing outlier, with its average price nearly €50/MWh below Hungary.
Hungary’s HUPX base price increased by €47.3/MWh to €161.19/MWh, while Romania reached €154.34/MWh, Bulgaria €146.11/MWh and Greece €135.11/MWh.
Croatia settled at €166.14/MWh, Montenegro at €165.13/MWh and Slovenia at €168.95/MWh. North Macedonia reached €150.41/MWh, while Albania recorded €129.40/MWh.
Serbia recorded the region’s lowest average at just €111.69/MWh, remaining broadly unchanged from Sunday and approximately €49.5/MWh below HUPX. The unusually large Serbian discount persisted even though the country remained a net electricity importer.
Western European markets were significantly more expensive. Germany traded around €195.40/MWh, Austria at €174.51/MWh and Italy at approximately €203.55/MWh, maintaining a strong commercial incentive for electricity to flow west wherever available cross-border capacity allowed.
Regional electricity consumption increased by approximately 3.65 GW to 28.83 GW compared with Sunday, helping restore the weekday price premium following the weekend decline.
At the same time, the combined Hungary and SEE system shifted from an almost balanced position on Sunday to net exports averaging around 1.39 GW. Approximately 1.26 GW flowed towards Italy, while around 547 MW moved towards Austria and Slovakia.
The change in cross-border flow direction was one of the main factors supporting Monday’s market recovery.
Bulgaria exported an average of 1.33 GW, Romania around 754 MW, Greece 1.35 GW and Bosnia and Herzegovina approximately 530 MW. Hungary remained a net importer at around 821 MW, while Croatia imported approximately 859 MW and Serbia around 394 MW.
Romania became an important east-to-west transit source, with average flows towards Hungary reaching approximately 1.92 GW. Bulgaria simultaneously supplied around 1.15 GW to Romania and almost 390 MW to Serbia, illustrating the increasingly interconnected flow structure across eastern SEE markets.
Hungary then redistributed part of those imports towards western and southern markets, exporting approximately 851 MW to Austria, 679 MW to Slovenia and 515 MW to Croatia.
The resulting flow pattern highlights Hungary’s growing role as a regional transit hub, connecting lower-priced eastern generation with higher-priced Central European demand.
Serbia remained the region’s most notable pricing anomaly.
SEEPEX traded approximately €34/MWh below Bulgaria, nearly €43/MWh below Romania and close to €50/MWh below Hungary. Yet Serbia remained a net importer, showing that national supply-demand balances alone increasingly provide an incomplete explanation of day-ahead price formation.
Instead, interconnector constraints, hourly commercial schedules and congestion can determine whether lower-cost electricity is able to reach neighbouring markets with higher prices.
Hourly price curves also highlighted the increasing value of flexibility.
HUPX fell to approximately €5.6/MWh during the midday renewable-generation period before rising to €342.2/MWh at hour 20. Serbia ranged from roughly €20/MWh during the low-price period to €276.6/MWh in the evening.
Greece briefly reached €0/MWh around midday before recovering towards an evening maximum of approximately €271/MWh.
This produced another session in which hourly price differences were considerably larger than the gaps between many national daily averages.
Strong solar generation continues to compress midday prices, while declining renewable output in the evening quickly restores premiums for flexible hydro, gas generation, battery storage and imports.
For traders, the Sept. 28 market delivered two clear signals. Weekday demand and stronger westbound exports lifted average prices across much of SEE, but regional markets remain far from fully converged.
The commercial opportunity is therefore increasingly found not simply in exposure to regional base prices, but in capturing spreads between countries and between oversupplied midday hours and the evening flexibility premium.
