Southeast European day-ahead electricity prices rose sharply for Monday delivery on 2 November, with Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary and Romania all trading above €309/MWh as weekday demand returned and the region developed a pronounced premium over Germany.
Bulgaria’s IBEX recorded the region’s highest baseload price at €317.78/MWh, up €55.8/MWh from Sunday, followed by Greece at €312.94/MWh, Hungary at €310.29/MWh and Romania at €309.74/MWh. Germany increased by only €3.1/MWh to €259.01/MWh, widening the Hungary-Germany spread to €51.28/MWh.
The widening gap with Germany was one of the clearest signals from the session. It indicated that Monday’s price rebound was concentrated in central and southeastern Europe, rather than reflecting a comparable increase across the wider continental market.
Regional electricity consumption was forecast at an average 34,232 MW, up 3,441 MW from Sunday. At the same time, net imports into the Hungary-SEE system fell by 591 MW to 3,844 MW, while imports from the Austria-Slovakia core declined by 901 MW to 3,024 MW. Imports from Italy, however, increased sharply to 928 MW.
The combination of higher consumption and lower aggregate imports suggests that a significant part of the Monday demand increase was being covered by higher regional generation rather than additional external supply. Regional power-balance data put generation at approximately 30.4 GW, compared with 26.4 GW on Sunday, while consumption climbed back above 34 GW.
The price response was nevertheless strong, with hourly curves across several exchanges showing a synchronised increase during the afternoon and evening. HUPX reached a Monday maximum of €396.5/MWh, while Romania and Bulgaria both reached €395.4/MWh and Greece €394.6/MWh. Serbia peaked at €375/MWh and Montenegro at €350/MWh. The alignment of peak hours across interconnected markets points to a regional rather than purely national price event.
Serbia’s SEEPEX baseload price increased by €31.9/MWh to €293.32/MWh, but remained almost €17/MWh below Hungary and around €24/MWh below Bulgaria. The Serbian market therefore participated in the regional rally without fully converging with the higher-priced eastern cluster.
SEEPEX peakload increased to €331.1/MWh, while off-peak power traded at €255.6/MWh. The daily low was €206/MWh and the maximum €375/MWh. Serbia’s seven-day baseload average stood at €287.7/MWh.
More importantly, Serbia’s domestic balance did not show a comparable increase in demand. Average consumption was around 4,037 MW, virtually unchanged from Sunday’s 4,031 MW, while generation slipped to approximately 2,890 MW from 2,930 MW. The resulting net import requirement increased to around 1,148 MW, from 1,101 MW a day earlier.
This suggests that the SEEPEX price increase was driven less by a sudden Serbian consumption shock and more by the repricing of the surrounding interconnected market, alongside Serbia’s continuing structural exposure to imported electricity.
Montenegro remained cheaper than the main eastern SEE markets. BELEN baseload rose €19.4/MWh to €287.55/MWh, leaving the market around €22.7/MWh below Hungary, €25.4/MWh below Greece and more than €30/MWh below Bulgaria.
Peak power reached €310.7/MWh, with off-peak at €264.4/MWh. The daily minimum was €226/MWh and the maximum €350/MWh.
Montenegrin consumption remained broadly stable at around 356 MW, but generation increased to approximately 177 MW, from 110 MW on Sunday. As a result, the country’s net import position narrowed to around 179 MW from 245 MW. The improving physical balance helped Montenegro maintain a substantial discount to the main eastern SEE markets despite the wider regional price increase.
Albania was the major regional outlier. ALPEX baseload slipped €2.6/MWh to €259.96/MWh, around €50/MWh below Hungary and almost €58/MWh below Bulgaria.
Its off-peak price fell sharply to €194.4/MWh, with the daily minimum reaching just €89.5/MWh, although peakload remained considerably firmer at €325.5/MWh. The unusually wide Albanian intraday range highlights the increasingly fragmented nature of SEE pricing, where relatively cheap renewable-heavy markets can coexist with expensive thermal and import-dependent markets during the same delivery day.
Hungary provided perhaps the clearest indication of tightening regional conditions. Hungarian consumption jumped from 4,540 MW on Sunday to 5,202 MW, while generation declined from 3,532 MW to around 3,264 MW. The country’s net import requirement consequently widened from approximately 1,008 MW to 1,938 MW.
The deterioration in Hungary’s domestic power balance helps explain why HUPX separated so sharply from Germany. The forward market also remained elevated, with Hungarian Week 45 power trading at €327.50/MWh, Week 46 at €333/MWh and November at €304.50/MWh. The November contract increased €11.5/MWh from the previous session, while Week 46 rose by €23/MWh.
CEGH gas stood at €105.39/MWh, EU carbon allowances at €89.19/t and November coal at $148/t, maintaining a high thermal generation cost floor and reinforcing the pressure on regional power prices.
The key market signal for 2 November is therefore not simply that SEE prices rose after the weekend. The more important development is the renewed separation between Germany and the Hungary-Romania-Bulgaria-Greece corridor.
Serbia and Montenegro remained positioned below the expensive eastern cluster, while Albania again emerged as the region’s principal low-price market. For traders and large consumers, the resulting structure effectively creates a three-tier SEE market: a high-priced eastern core above €309/MWh, an intermediate Serbia-Montenegro-North Macedonia corridor around €288-294/MWh, and an Albanian market near €260/MWh.
The return of weekday demand, Hungary’s larger import deficit and the €51/MWh Hungary-Germany spread will be the key signals to monitor in the next session. If those conditions persist, the latest rally could prove to be more than a simple post-weekend demand normalisation and instead signal a more sustained tightening of power-market conditions across central and southeastern Europe.
