gas

In South-East Europe, gas does not merely influence electricity prices through marginal cost. It multiplies volatility by interacting with structural congestion in the power grid. When gas tightness coincides with constrained transmission, the price impact is no longer incremental; it becomes discontinuous. This interaction explains why electricity markets across the region experience abrupt price separations and extreme

The same gas shock produces very different electricity outcomes depending on where it lands. In Central Europe, gas price movements tend to pass through into power prices in a measured, relatively predictable way. In South-East Europe, identical gas signals often translate into outsized, abrupt electricity price responses. This elasticity gap—the difference in how gas tightness converts

Gas has become the most misunderstood variable in South-East Europe’s electricity markets. It no longer needs to dominate generation volumes, fuel mixes, or annual averages to dominate outcomes. Its true role today is that of a marginal shock transmitter: the mechanism through which system stress is converted into abrupt price escalation, spread dislocation, and cost overruns.