Southeast European day-ahead electricity prices moved sharply lower across most interconnected markets for Tuesday delivery, reversing part of Monday’s surge as stronger solar availability, cooler regional temperatures and lower import requirements outweighed an increase in aggregate consumption. The most striking feature of the session was not simply the fall in outright prices, but the degree of convergence across Hungary and the central European-linked markets, alongside persistent discounts in Serbia, North Macedonia and parts of the southern Balkans.
Hungary’s HUPX day-ahead baseload settled at €164.47/MWh, down €19.4/MWh, or about 10.6%, from Monday. Romania’s OPCOM was almost identical at €164.17/MWh, while Croatia cleared at €164.23/MWh, Germany at €163.93/MWh, Slovenia at €165.68/MWh and Austria at €166.08/MWh. Taken together, those six markets averaged about €164.76/MWh, with just €2.15/MWh separating the cheapest and most expensive contracts in the group.
The convergence was particularly visible in the Hungarian spreads. HUPX traded only €0.54/MWh above Germany, €0.30/MWh above Romania and €0.24/MWh above Croatia, while Slovenia carried a premium of just over €1.20/MWh to Hungary. This represents an unusually compact central and northern SEE price cluster and suggests that, for Tuesday, the region was trading much more as an integrated central European system than as a collection of isolated national markets.
The picture changed further south. Serbia’s SEEPEX remained the regional low at €133.02/MWh, despite rising €4.8/MWh day on day. North Macedonia followed at €135.38/MWh, down almost €16/MWh from Monday. Albania increased €8.3/MWh to €152.60/MWh, Greece edged €0.3/MWh higher to €153.72/MWh, and Montenegro fell €13.6/MWh to €154.65/MWh. Italy remained the regional premium market, with the national price at around €172.64/MWh. The gap between Italy and Serbia was therefore about €39.6/MWh, still substantial but considerably narrower than the roughly €51/MWh spread visible a day earlier.
The combination produced a clear two-tier structure. Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and Germany formed a tightly coupled band around €164-166/MWh, while Serbia and North Macedonia remained heavily discounted. HUPX carried premiums of about €31.45/MWh over Serbia and €29.08/MWh over North Macedonia, compared with €10.75/MWh over Greece and €11.87/MWh over Albania. Italy, by contrast, retained an €8.17/MWh premium to Hungary.
Hourly trading profiles show that the more important structural feature was the continuing inversion between conventional peak and off-peak contracts. In Hungary, the peak block averaged only €153.8/MWh, compared with €175.1/MWh for off-peak hours. Germany showed almost the same structure, at €153.8/MWh peak against €174.1/MWh off-peak, while Romania cleared at €153.9/MWh and €174.4/MWh, respectively.
The inversion was even more pronounced farther south. Greece recorded a €133.1/MWh peak average against €174.3/MWh off-peak, a gap of more than €41/MWh. Serbia’s peak block was only €115/MWh, versus €151.1/MWh off-peak, while North Macedonia stood at €122.5/MWh peak and €148.3/MWh off-peak. Italy’s national contract showed €159.1/MWh peak compared with €188.2/MWh off-peak.
That profile reflects the increasingly sharp separation between solar-heavy daytime hours and the late-evening ramp. HUPX reached its minimum of €131.3/MWh in hour 14, before rising to €208.6/MWh in hour 21. Romania posted essentially the same €208.6/MWh maximum, while Greece dropped as low as €66.3/MWh in hour 15 before also reaching €208.6/MWh in hour 21. Italy showed the strongest late-evening scarcity signal, with its national maximum reaching €251.7/MWh in hour 21.
Serbia provided an especially clear illustration of why a low baseload average should not be interpreted as an absence of scarcity. SEEPEX fell to just €56.9/MWh at its minimum but climbed to €224.3/MWh in hour 21, above the Hungarian maximum. The result was a relatively cheap daily average combined with an expensive evening ramp. North Macedonia ranged from €70/MWh to €200/MWh, while Montenegro moved between €130/MWh and €217.1/MWh.
Fundamentals were mixed rather than uniformly bearish. Average regional consumption was forecast at 31.495 GW, an increase of 708 MW from Monday, despite the regional temperature indicator falling 1.2°C to 23.3°C. Hungary’s load declined 259 MW to 4.48 GW, but demand rose by 345 MW in Greece and by a sizeable 920 MW across Romania and Bulgaria.
Renewables provided the stronger counterweight. The report’s solar forecast increased by 918 MW day on day to around 7.895 GW, while wind availability eased by 179 MW to 1.248 GW. The result was therefore not a conventional low-demand price correction. The spot market moved lower even as total regional load increased, with the additional solar contribution and a redistribution of physical flows helping absorb the stronger weekday demand.
Net regional imports dropped to just 436 MW, down 555 MW from the previous session. Imports from the Austria-Slovakia core declined by 462 MW to 948 MW, while electricity exports towards Italy increased to about 513 MW from 403 MW the previous day. Price convergence with Germany therefore strengthened even as SEE required less power from the core, an important distinction from sessions when HUPX convergence is driven primarily by heavy west-to-east imports.
The underlying country balances show a pronounced northbound chain within the region. Bulgaria remained one of the strongest surplus systems, with forecast generation of around 5.37 GW against consumption of 3.90 GW, leaving net exports of approximately 1.47 GW. The Bulgaria-Romania base flow was around 1.15 GW, while another 385 MW moved from Bulgaria towards Serbia and roughly 160 MW towards North Macedonia.
Romania, meanwhile, was almost balanced at system level, with generation around 5.59 GW against consumption of 5.60 GW, yet still acted as a major transit market. Average base flows from Romania into Hungary reached about 1.19 GW, rising to 2.27 GW during peak hours. This combination — Bulgarian surplus moving into Romania and strong Romanian deliveries onwards to Hungary — helps explain how the central SEE price cluster could remain closely aligned even as total imports from Austria and Slovakia fell.
Hungary itself remained structurally short. Consumption was forecast at 4.48 GW against generation of roughly 2.89 GW, implying net imports close to 1.59 GW, although that deficit was smaller than Monday’s approximately 2.09 GW. Slovakia remained another important source, providing around 796 MW on a base basis, while Hungary simultaneously exported power towards Croatia and Slovenia during parts of the day. The hourly Austria-Hungary profile was highly variable, switching between significant imports and exports, another indication that the near-zero daily HUPX-Germany spread concealed considerable intraday congestion and flow reversal.
Bulgaria’s large export position contrasted with Serbia’s much more balanced system. Serbian generation was forecast at roughly 3.48 GW, close to consumption of 3.53 GW, leaving an average net import requirement of only around 59 MW. The country nevertheless traded more than €31/MWh below Hungary on a baseload basis. Serbia imported strongly from Bulgaria and North Macedonia while exporting on other borders, producing an hourly and geographical balance that allowed the daily average to remain depressed even as its evening maximum exceeded HUPX.
Greece was in the opposite position, remaining a substantial exporter despite trading below the northern cluster. Generation was indicated at around 7.42 GW against consumption of approximately 6.50 GW, leaving exports of about 919 MW. That was considerably below Monday’s 1.55 GW, but Greek power continued to move towards Bulgaria, Albania, North Macedonia and Italy during substantial parts of the day. Its extremely low €66.3/MWh afternoon minimum against a €208.6/MWh evening maximum underlines the degree to which the Greek market is increasingly being shaped by hour-specific renewable availability rather than a single daily supply-demand balance.
The prompt power correction also fed directly into the Hungarian forward curve. Week 35 dropped €10/MWh to €150.50/MWh, while Week 36 fell an even steeper €13.50/MWh to €147/MWh. September 2026 declined €4/MWh to €157.50/MWh, whereas Calendar 2026 was unchanged at €126.50/MWh. The concentration of losses at the front of the curve suggests the market was unwinding part of the risk premium embedded in Monday’s high prompt prices rather than repricing the longer-term Hungarian power balance.
The same movement was visible in Hungarian-German forward spreads. The Week 35 premium contracted by €9/MWh to €22.50/MWh, Week 36 narrowed €4.50/MWh to €25.50/MWh, and September eased €1/MWh to €25.50/MWh. The calendar spread held at €20/MWh. Front-end Hungarian power therefore weakened materially both in absolute terms and relative to Germany.
Fuel markets did not provide the same bearish signal. CEGH gas was quoted at €63.16/MWh, up €1/MWh day on day, while the Greek gas indicator increased €0.60/MWh to €55.58/MWh. EU allowances were slightly softer at €81.58/t, down €0.20, and September gas forwards were unchanged at €63/MWh, with Q4 up €0.50 at €63.50/MWh. The divergence between firmer gas and sharply weaker Hungarian prompt power reinforces the view that Tuesday’s adjustment was predominantly a power-market correction driven by regional balance, renewable shape and cross-border positioning rather than a broad decline across the thermal fuel complex.
The near-term weather profile nevertheless leaves limited room for complacency on the short side. The regional temperature forecast excluding Greece rises from 23.3°C on Tuesday to 23.9°C on Wednesday, then accelerates to 26.7°C on Thursday and 27.6°C on Friday. Hungary is forecast to move from 21.1°C to around 26.4-26.5°C later in the week, while Romania, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro also turn markedly warmer.
That warming profile points to renewed cooling demand just as the market is demonstrating that its most expensive hours are increasingly concentrated after the solar ramp-down. Tuesday’s broad baseload correction has reduced the premium built into the front of the Hungarian curve, but the underlying hourly structure remains tight where it matters most: evening prices above €200/MWh were recorded across much of the region, Italy reached more than €250/MWh, and even heavily discounted Serbia printed above €224/MWh. The next trading sessions are therefore likely to remain defined less by the daily baseload number than by the contest between daytime renewable compression, evening thermal flexibility and the ability of Romania, Bulgaria and the core interconnectors to redistribute power into the highest-priced hours.
