Southeast European day-ahead electricity markets traded within an unusually narrow band for delivery on Sunday, 19 July 2026, with lower weekend demand and strong photovoltaic output displacing import and thermal-generation pressures from the prior week.
Hungary’s HUPX market settled at €85.90/MWh, followed by Romania at €86.14/MWh, Bulgaria at €86.21/MWh and Greece at €86.31/MWh. Serbia cleared at €87.32/MWh, Croatia at €89.11/MWh and Slovenia at €91.14/MWh, leaving the seven markets within a tight range.
Only €5.24/MWh separated Hungary, the lowest-priced market, from Slovenia, the highest-priced market. The simple regional average was approximately €87.45/MWh, about 18% below the €106.39/MWh average recorded for Saturday delivery.
Day-ahead declines and system-load indicators
The largest day-on-day declines were recorded in Romania, where prices fell by €24.07/MWh, and Croatia, which declined by €22.27/MWh. Slovenia fell by €22/MWh, Hungary by €20.24/MWh, while Bulgaria and Greece dropped by approximately €15/MWh.
Serbia recorded the smallest reduction among the seven markets at €13.95/MWh. The convergence suggests available generation and cross-border capacity were broadly sufficient to limit a pronounced national scarcity premium during most of the day.
Combined system-load indicators for the seven markets fell to approximately 27.1 GW, down from 28.7 GW on Saturday, a reduction of roughly 5.6%. Serbia’s indicator declined from 3,772 MW to 3,371 MW, Croatia’s from 2,403 MW to 2,186 MW, Romania’s from 5,557 MW to 5,238 MW and Hungary’s from 4,464 MW to 4,150 MW.
Greece remained the largest market in the group at approximately 7,010 MW. Despite the narrow daily averages across coupled markets, closely aligned prices can still mask binding constraints during individual hours.
Solar-driven midday lows versus evening price spikes
Near-zero midday pricing did not remove the evening ramp in hourly trading values. In Hungary, prices were just €0.02/MWh at 10:00 CEST before rising to €153.71/MWh at 18:00, producing an intraday spread of almost €154/MWh despite a daily average below €86/MWh.
Romania followed a similar pattern: prices fell to €0.02/MWh during the solar window before reaching €154.13/MWh as photovoltaic output began to decline. Bulgaria dropped to €0.04/MWh before rising to €154.96/MWh, while Greece moved from €0.04/MWh to €156.77/MWh.
The strongest hourly dislocation occurred in Slovenia. BSP SouthPool prices fell to €0.02/MWh during late-morning hours before reaching €185.11/MWh in the evening, creating a spread of more than €185/MWh.
The inversion of hourly value in Slovenia reflected its position between Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia, where marginal cross-border capacity values can change quickly as solar output declines and Italian and Balkan evening demand strengthens.
SEEPEX auction outcomes and storage spread signals
The session stopped short of widespread negative pricing across principal coupled markets . Near-zero prices indicated that solar generation displaced most other marginal sources without forcing generators to pay to stay online across those markets.
The limited negative-price signal may be linked to renewable curtailment, flexible hydropower dispatch, export availability or thermal units bidding close to zero to avoid shutdown and restart costs.
Serbia’s SEEPEX auction reinforced an inverted daily price curve . Baseload settled at €87.32/MWh, while the peak product averaged just €54.78/MWh.
SEEPEX cleared 19,203.5 MWh for the delivery day, equivalent to an average hourly traded volume of approximately 800 MWh. While liquidity improved relative to day-ahead averages, physical balancing exposure remained larger than suggested by day-ahead volumes due to forecast errors around falling solar output and rising evening demand.
A one-megawatt battery completing a full cycle between Hungary’s lowest and highest hourly prices faced a theoretical gross spread of almost €154 per MWh of storage capacity after accounting for efficiency losses, degradation, grid charges and trading costs were excluded from that figure.
Slovenia’s theoretical spread exceeded €185/MWh. These spreads were described as non-bankable revenue assumptions but indicative of why captured spread is becoming central for regional storage operations.
Week 27 demand balance shifts and fuel-linked price pressure
The Sunday correction followed a materially tighter weekly balance than the prior week . Southeast European electricity demand increased by 2.1% to 18.80 TWh in Week 27 from 18.41 TWh in Week 26.
Türkiye added 448 GWh, reaching 7.73 TWh, while demand rose by 8% in Greece, 7.3% in Romania and 2.9% in Croatia compared with the previous week.
