Electricity baseload prices fell by more than 20% across several Southeast European markets for Saturday delivery. Evening prices, however, remained above €250/MWh, indicating that the scarcity premium was not fully removed.
Saturday day-ahead baseload declines across regional markets
In Hungary, day-ahead baseload fell 26.7% to €153.09/MWh. Romania’s baseload dropped 25.5% to €155.38/MWh.
Bulgaria declined 23.5% to €153.64/MWh, while Croatia fell 27.4% to €150.05/MWh and Slovenia eased 27.8% to €149.17/MWh. Serbia moved lower by 8.4% to €150.38/MWh, and Greece declined 11.3% to €161.97/MWh.
Albania remained the premium market at around €181.58/MWh, despite falling about 8%. The change in averages followed weaker weekend consumption and improved supply availability alongside stronger renewable output after extremely high prices earlier in the week.
Tighter hours show higher prices and a wider intraday curve
The daily baseload figures did not reflect the trading conditions during tighter periods. Greek prices reached around €274.80/MWh, while Hungary rose to about €253.22 and Romania to around €246.94 during those hours.
At the other end of the curve, several coupled markets traded close to zero during periods of strong renewable output . This contributed to a widening intraday spread that increasingly affects asset economics beyond the daily average.
Solar expansion shifts price patterns for flexibility and storage
Solar capacity has expanded rapidly in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and increasingly Serbia. During sunny periods, photovoltaic generation can push wholesale prices sharply lower.
When solar output falls, the system must replace it with hydro, nuclear, coal, gas-fired generation, storage or imports . Where flexible resources are limited, prices rise rapidly as evening demand tightens relative to supply.
This price shape supports revenue opportunities for batteries, pumped storage and flexible hydro. Battery storage can charge during low-price periods and discharge into evening scarcity, while hydro operators can preserve reservoir generation for the most valuable hours.
The same pattern is also changing renewable project economics for solar producers. A solar plant may generate a large share of annual output during the cheapest hours of the day, meaning annual average wholesale prices increasingly overstate the revenue available to photovoltaic plants; storage, structured PPAs and active portfolio management therefore become more valuable.
