Scheduled electricity exchanges between the Western Balkans Six and neighbouring EU markets fell 17.8% in January–September 2026, even as regional day-ahead trading volumes increased, according to the Energy Community Secretariat’s third-quarter assessment. The figures point to a gap between growing organised-market activity and electricity flows across the region’s EU borders, where carbon-related costs are becoming more important to commercial decisions.
Gross scheduled exchanges were 14.3% lower year on year in the third quarter, although they recovered 8.6% from the previous quarter. The assessment covers electricity trading in the quarter and compares the first nine months of 2026 with the same period in 2025.
Day-ahead volumes on SEEPEX, MEPX, ALPEX and MEMO reached approximately 2.97 TWh in the third quarter, up 26.7% from a year earlier. The Energy Community Secretariat reported the increase across the four organised electricity markets while scheduled exchanges with neighbouring EU markets remained below their 2025 levels.
Price spreads and carbon costs
Across eight Western Balkan–EU electricity price pairs, absolute hourly price differences exceeded €20/MWh in 53.9% of third-quarter hours, compared with 21.7% a year earlier. The wider differences do not by themselves establish that cross-border trading was profitable, because applicable carbon obligations and delivery costs can reduce the margin available to traders.
The European Commission set the third-quarter 2026 CBAM certificate price at €82.32 per tonne of CO₂, up from €75.28 in the second quarter. The cost of electricity imports also depends on the applicable emissions methodology, eligible deductions and other regulatory conditions, the assessment said.
For commercial calculations, traders increasingly need to compare EU wholesale revenues with procurement costs, transmission charges, losses, balancing exposure and CBAM-related liabilities. A price spread that once supported cross-border arbitrage may therefore no longer offer an attractive margin after those costs and carbon obligations are included.
Export routes move in different directions
Scheduled electricity exports from Serbia to Hungary declined 21.6%, despite a wider wholesale price spread between the two markets. By contrast, scheduled exports from Montenegro to Italy increased approximately 80%, according to the assessment.
The differing routes show that CBAM exposure does not independently determine commercial flows. Generation, demand, hydrology, trading positions, transmission capacity and contractual arrangements also influence exchanges, while wholesale prices, transmission access and verified carbon characteristics are increasingly interconnected variables.
The assessment describes a growing distinction for Western Balkan generators between electricity that can be sold domestically or regionally and electricity that can economically reach EU customers. A potential structural discount may affect electricity in exporting markets with carbon-intensive generation mixes, or where low-carbon output cannot meet requirements for recognition of actual emissions.
For Serbia, Montenegro and the wider Western Balkans, the challenge identified in the report is preserving efficient electricity trade while adapting to regulatory treatment of carbon that can determine whether cross-border transactions are profitable. The observed changes cannot be attributed exclusively to CBAM, as generation, demand, hydrology and available interconnection capacity also affect trading patterns.
