Southeast European day-ahead power prices remained near €300/MWh on November 4, although a decline in Serbia and a sharp rise in Albania widened differences between markets. Regional imports increased even as forecast demand fell. The divergence pointed to growing fragmentation across the region.
Hungary’s HUPX settled at €302.31/MWh, alongside Romania at €300.84/MWh and Bulgaria at €301.69/MWh. All three markets rose from the previous session and formed the tightest price cluster. Montenegro and North Macedonia were close behind at €299.13/MWh and €299.90/MWh, respectively.
At the edges of the region, Serbia’s SEEPEX fell €12.7/MWh to €292.45/MWh, while Albania rose €19.4/MWh to a regional high of €333.03/MWh. Greece gained €12.4 on the day but remained among the cheapest Southeast European markets at €279.70/MWh; Italy was also cheaper at €282.19/MWh. Germany traded well below the region at €248.99/MWh, putting Hungary at a €53.33/MWh premium to the German market.
Imports rise as regional generation falls
Forecast regional consumption declined by 712 MW to 34,910 MW, but net imports increased by 483 MW to 4,244 MW. Imports from the Austria-Slovakia direction reached 3,142 MW, while flows from Italy into the region rose to 1,104 MW. The higher inflows increased Southeast Europe’s reliance on external supply despite lower demand and kept physical balances supportive of prices.
Regional generation fell from 31,861 MW on November 3 to around 30,665 MW on November 4. Solar production was forecast to increase by 1,304 MW. Expected wind generation dropped by 1,464 MW, more than offsetting the solar gain.
Serbia showed one of the clearest signs of decoupling, with SEEPEX base power at €292.45/MWh, almost €10/MWh below Hungary. The move was concentrated in peak hours: Serbian peak prices fell from €341.4/MWh to €316.5/MWh, while off-peak prices were nearly unchanged at €268.4/MWh. That pattern points to easing peak-period tightness rather than a broad decline across the daily price curve.
Albania moved in the opposite direction, with ALPEX reaching €333.03/MWh, more than €40/MWh above Serbia. Its maximum hourly price reached €600/MWh at H21. The widening Serbia-Albania gap illustrates how transmission constraints and local generation conditions can produce large price differences between nearby Southeast European markets.
Forward prices soften despite spot strength
Forward markets were softer than the spot signal. Hungarian Week 46 power edged up to €314/MWh, but Week 47 fell to €294/MWh and December declined to €262/MWh. The HU-DE Week 47 spread narrowed by €18.5/MWh to €71/MWh. Gas, carbon and coal benchmarks also moved lower, offering less evidence that the latest spot strength reflected a new fuel-cost shock.
The trading signal was increasingly centred on regional price dispersion rather than the headline Southeast European price. Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria remained closely grouped around €301–302/MWh; Serbia shifted into a lower-priced Central Balkan pocket, Greece and Italy remained cheaper, and Albania stood out as the region’s clearest scarcity market. With net imports above 4.2 GW and Hungary still more than €50/MWh above Germany, cross-border capacity, wind availability and national generation balances remained the main factors to watch in the next trading sessions.
