Day-ahead electricity prices in Southeast Europe rebounded strongly for Sept. 28 as weekday demand returned and regional cross-border flows shifted toward higher-priced western markets. Serbia remained a major outlier, with prices almost €50/MWh below Hungary. Western markets were also stronger during the same session.
Day-ahead price levels across SEE and western hubs
On HUPX, Hungary’s base price rose by €47.3/MWh to €161.19/MWh. Romania increased to €154.34/MWh, Bulgaria to €146.11/MWh and Greece to €135.11/MWh. Croatia settled at €166.14/MWh, while Montenegro reached €165.13/MWh and Slovenia €168.95/MWh.
North Macedonia recorded a day-ahead settlement of €150.41/MWh and Albania €129.40/MWh. Serbia posted the region’s lowest average at just €111.69/MWh, little changed from Sunday. The Serbian average remained around €49.5/MWh below HUPX.
Demand recovery and cross-border flow shifts
Regional consumption increased by about 3.65 GW from Sunday to 28.83 GW, restoring a weekday premium after the weekend price collapse. Over the same period, the combined Hungary and SEE system moved from an almost balanced position to net exports averaging around 1.39 GW. Flows of about 1.26 GW went toward Italy, while roughly 547 MW moved toward Austria and Slovakia.
Bulgaria exported an average 1.33 GW, Romania about 754 MW, Greece 1.35 GW and Bosnia and Herzegovina around 530 MW. Hungary remained a net importer of about 821 MW, Croatia imported around 859 MW and Serbia about 394 MW. Germany traded around €195.40/MWh, Austria at €174.51/MWh and Italy at about €203.55/MWh.
Transit patterns through Romania and Hungary
Romania acted as an east-to-west transit source, with flows toward Hungary reaching around 1.92 GW on average. Bulgaria supplied approximately 1.15 GW to Romania and almost 390 MW to Serbia during the session, reflecting tighter interconnection across eastern SEE markets. Hungary then redistributed part of those imports west and south.
Hungary exported around 851 MW toward Austria, 679 MW toward Slovenia and 515 MW toward Croatia after receiving eastern supply flows. The resulting pattern indicated that Hungary functioned as a transit hub linking lower-priced eastern generation with Central European demand rather than only as an import-dependent market.
Serbia’s pricing anomaly and intraday flexibility signals
Serbia remained the most important pricing anomaly relative to neighbouring markets on SEEPEX. Prices were traded around €34/MWh below Bulgaria, almost €43/MWh below Romania and close to €50/MWh below Hungary, while Serbia was still importing electricity overall despite its net balance not aligning with the day-ahead discount.
The hourly curves showed that market spreads varied more across individual hours than many national daily averages suggest. On HUPX, prices fell to around €5.6/MWh during the midday renewable period before rising to €342.2/MWh at hour 20; Serbia ranged from around €20/MWh during the low-price period to €276.6/MWh in the evening.
Greece briefly reached €0/MWh around midday before recovering toward an evening maximum of about €271/MWh. Strong solar production compressed midday prices, while falling renewable output later restored premiums for flexible resources including hydro, gas generation, storage and imports.
For traders on Sept. 28, weekday demand recovery together with stronger westbound exports supported higher average prices across most of SEE, while regional convergence remained incomplete due to country-level differences driven by interconnector constraints, hourly commercial schedules and congestion.