The 25 August 2026 day-ahead session shows a market that is expensive but increasingly segmented rather than uniformly tight. The strongest feature is the almost complete convergence of the liquid Central and Eastern European SEE markets around €174-176/MWh, while Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia trade at material discounts, Germany remains far cheaper, and Italy retains the regional premium.
HUPX settled at €175.37/MWh, up €5.1/MWh day on day. Romania followed at €174.99, Bulgaria at €173.75, Greece at €173.73, Croatia at €175.08 and Slovenia at €175.67/MWh. That leaves the entire HU-RO-BG-GR-HR-SI cluster inside a remarkably narrow €1.94/MWh band. Serbia was the outlier at only €157.95/MWh, a €17.42/MWh discount to Hungary, while Montenegro stood at €164.58, North Macedonia at €165.53 and Albania at €170.63/MWh. Germany was much lower at €141.43/MWh, producing a €33.94/MWh HU-DE spread, while Austria was quoted at €177.64 and the Italian headline reference at €190.54/MWh.
The most important fundamental change was not a collapse in regional generation but a sharp increase in demand that had to be covered primarily through imports. HU+SEE consumption rose from 32,510 MW to 33,505 MW, an increase of 995 MW, while aggregate generation increased by only 327 MW, from 30,421 MW to 30,748 MW. Net imports therefore jumped by exactly the remaining 668 MW, from 2,089 MW to 2,757 MW. Imports from the AT+SK core reached 3,000 MW, up 144 MW, while exports toward Italy fell to 713 MW from 1,187 MW the previous day. The region was therefore drawing more heavily on Central Europe while simultaneously continuing to transmit significant volumes toward the higher-priced Italian market.
Hungary is the clearest source of tightening
Hungary accounts for a substantial part of the change. Hungarian consumption increased by 285 MW, from 4,369 MW to 4,654 MW, while domestic generation declined from 3,434 MW to 3,329 MW. The resulting net import requirement rose from 935 MW to 1,325 MW, a deterioration of 390 MW in a single session. In effect, roughly 28.5% of Hungarian demand was being covered through net imports.
That helps explain both the €5.1/MWh rise in HUPX and the widening premium over Germany. Hungary was not merely following a general SEE move higher; its domestic balance tightened precisely when Germany remained much cheaper. The HU-DE spread expanded to €33.94/MWh, compared with roughly €27/MWh previously. The flow data also show heavy support entering Hungary from the north, particularly through Slovakia and Austria, but those flows were insufficient to erase the price differential.
The forward market suggests traders do not regard that premium as a purely one-day event. The Hungarian Week 36 contract was indicated at €146.50/MWh, while the HU-DE Week 36 spread reached €28.50/MWh. The September Hungarian contract stood at €163/MWh, with a €26.50/MWh premium to Germany. Even the Calendar 2026 spread remained around €19.50/MWh.
Serbia is moving in the opposite direction
The most interesting trading dislocation is Serbia.
While essentially every core regional exchange gained €4-6/MWh, SEEPEX slipped €1.9/MWh to €157.95/MWh. Serbia’s own physical balance actually improved: consumption eased from 3,602 MW to 3,579 MW, total generation increased from 3,037 MW to 3,167 MW, and net imports fell from 565 MW to 412 MW. In other words, around 153 MW of Serbia’s previous-day import requirement disappeared.
But the daily average understates how pronounced the Serbian decoupling became.
SEEPEX peak prices dropped from €143.9 to €138.2/MWh, while off-peak prices actually increased slightly to €177.7/MWh. The minimum hourly price collapsed from €100 to only €54.1/MWh, with the low occurring around H12, while the maximum fell from €240 to €211/MWh.
That produces one of the clearest signals in today’s data: Serbia is not simply “cheap”; it has a very deep daytime trough followed by considerably more expensive evening and overnight power. The €39.5/MWh difference between its €138.2 peak average and €177.7 off-peak average illustrates how strongly solar-era hourly economics are reshaping conventional peak/off-peak definitions.
There is also an important cross-border implication. Despite Serbia being around €17/MWh cheaper than Hungary on the daily base, scheduled Serbia-Hungary flow averaged approximately 40 MW toward Serbia, rather than northward toward the more expensive HUPX market; peak flow was around 81 MW from Hungary into Serbia.
That is a useful warning against treating the SEEPEX-HUPX base spread as freely arbitrageable. Border allocations, nominations, hourly price shapes and the absence of full market coupling can dominate the apparent daily-average economic signal. For traders, the spread is valuable precisely because physical capacity is scarce or imperfectly available.
The regional price curve is increasingly solar-shaped
The same phenomenon can be seen on HUPX, although less dramatically. Hungarian base power was €175.4/MWh, but peak averaged only €159.2, compared with €191.5/MWh off-peak. The HUPX minimum was €122.8/MWh around H12, versus a maximum of €225.7/MWh around H19.
This inverted peak/off-peak relationship is becoming the dominant short-term trading characteristic of SEE summer markets. The traditional assumption that daytime “peak” power carries a premium is increasingly unreliable because the peak block includes the solar-rich middle of the day. The scarce hours have migrated toward the evening ramp and, increasingly, overnight periods.
The underlying forecast supports that interpretation. Regional solar output was forecast around 7.9 GW, about 1.27 GW higher day on day, while wind was expected at only around 1.94 GW, down roughly 805 MW. Demand simultaneously increased by almost 1 GW. The result is not a simple renewable-surplus market: solar depresses the midday hours, but weaker wind and higher load maintain high prices outside the solar window.
That is why a day with a €175/MWh HUPX base can simultaneously contain a midday market close to €123/MWh and an evening market above €220/MWh.
Montenegro’s €22 fall is largely the unwinding of a scarcity spike
Montenegro recorded the largest headline decline, with BELEN dropping €22.1/MWh to €164.58/MWh. But the hourly data show that this is mostly normalization following an exceptional 24 August peak.
Montenegrin peak power fell from an extraordinary €220.4/MWh to €151.3/MWh, while the maximum hourly price dropped from €450.2 to €230/MWh. In contrast, off-peak power actually increased from €153 to €177.9/MWh.
So the €22/MWh base-price decline does not indicate a general collapse in Montenegro’s power value. It represents the disappearance of the previous day’s extreme evening scarcity event.
The physical balance also improved slightly. Consumption increased from 473 MW to 485 MW, but generation rose more strongly, from 330 MW to 363 MW, reducing net imports from 144 MW to 122 MW.
Even more interesting is Montenegro’s role as a transit market. On a base-load average it received approximately 306 MW from Bosnia and Herzegovina, 144 MW from Serbia and 112 MW from Kosovo, plus smaller flows elsewhere, while sending around 452 MW toward Italy.
That means Montenegro was simultaneously a net importer and a major transit corridor into the higher-priced Italian market. With southern Italy around €190.5/MWh against BELEN’s €164.6/MWh, the economics of the Italy-Montenegro corridor remain highly visible.
Romania tightens into HUPX despite a better domestic balance
Romania presents almost the opposite case to Serbia. Romanian consumption increased by 154 MW, but generation rose by 262 MW, allowing net imports to fall from 540 MW to 430 MW. Despite this improving domestic balance, OPCOM increased €4.6/MWh to €174.99/MWh, only €0.38/MWh below HUPX.
This demonstrates how strongly Romania is currently being priced by the wider coupled market rather than by its daily domestic net position alone.
The intraday flow structure is particularly revealing. Romania was an importer on the full-day average, but became a 191 MW net exporter during peak hours while importing more than 1 GW off-peak. Romania-Hungary flows reversed even more strongly, with Romania exporting around 939 MW to Hungary during peak, then importing approximately 1.34 GW during off-peak hours.
That is effectively the physical manifestation of the new regional price curve: power flows change direction between solar-rich peak hours and the structurally tighter off-peak periods.
Forward markets reinforce the message
Fuel markets are also becoming more supportive rather than providing relief. The report shows CEGH gas around €69.15/MWh, higher by €1.7, while Greek gas increased by more than €5/MWh and EU carbon was around €83.8/t, up €1.2. Hungarian September power gained around €4/MWh, while September and Q4 gas forwards also moved higher. Coal remained comparatively stable.
Over the broader period shown in the report, CEGH September gas had increased around 10.3%, Q4 gas about 11.1%, API2 September coal roughly 5%, and December EUA approximately 2.4%.
The forward curve therefore offers little evidence that Hungary’s premium to Germany is about to disappear. The market is instead pricing a continuing combination of high gas costs, elevated carbon, transmission congestion and an increasingly extreme intraday renewable profile.
The principal signal from 25 August is consequently not simply that SEE power remains expensive. It is that the market is separating into distinct trading regimes. Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia and Slovenia have effectively converged near €175/MWh. Serbia has decoupled almost €17/MWh below that core. Montenegro and North Macedonia occupy an intermediate discount zone. Germany remains more than €30/MWh cheaper than Hungary, while Italy preserves a substantial premium.
At the same time, the traditional baseload number is becoming less informative on its own. Serbia at €158/MWh contains a €54/MWh midday hour and almost €180/MWh off-peak power. Montenegro’s €22 fall hides a €25/MWh increase in off-peak prices. Romania reverses from imports to exports between blocks. Hungary requires sharply higher imports even while its premium to Germany expands.
For trading desks, the highest-value signals today are therefore the persistent HU-DE congestion premium, the un-arbitraged SEEPEX-HUPX discount, the Montenegro-Italy transit economics, and the increasingly pronounced midday-versus-evening spread across essentially the entire SEE market.