Power Prices Stay Above 150 Euros, Hard Winter Looms
Serbian Power Exchange director Milos Mladenovic says prices remain above 150 euros per megawatt-hour, while the region is short some four gigawatts of nuclear output.
The average electricity price on the Serbian Power Exchange (SEPEX) is still holding above 150 euros per megawatt-hour, exchange director Milos Mladenovic said on August 25 in an interview with Radio Television of Serbia (RTS). For comparison, Hungary’s average baseload price has run around 175 euros per megawatt-hour all year.
“Forecasts point to a tough winter ahead,” Mladenovic said, though he noted the picture has improved somewhat compared with earlier summer months on the hydrology and nuclear-output side, even as consumption stays high because of the warm weather.
Evening Prices Spike to 500 Euros
The 150-euro average does not capture the full daily swing. Mladenovic says that during August’s energy crunch, evening peak-hour prices climbed past 400, and at times 500, euros per megawatt-hour. The cause is the growing share of solar power in generation, which has flipped the old daily price pattern: electricity used to be more expensive in the daytime, but now it is cheaper during daylight hours and rises again in the evening, when solar output drops and demand climbs.
Serbia has been part of the single European electricity market since 2008, when the market was liberalized, so disruptions in Western and Central Europe feed straight through to domestic prices.
Djerdap and France’s Nuclear Outages
Two separate problems have hit output this year. The first is drought: the Danube’s inflow at Djerdap has, according to Mladenovic, run around 1,400 cubic meters per second in recent days. He cites 2,500 cubic meters per second as the biological minimum, while the director of the Djerdap hydropower plant earlier this year gave a slightly lower figure, 2,350 cubic meters per second, as the biological minimum. Either way, actual inflow has been well below that threshold, capping the hydropower plant’s output.
The second problem is nuclear. France at times had around 6,500 megawatts of nuclear capacity offline, Mladenovic says. The region took a further hit from reduced output at Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant, which is now recovering: three reactors are already back online, and a fourth is due to follow. All four together provide about two gigawatts of installed capacity, which Mladenovic compares to the entire consumption of the town of Obrenovac.
Region Short Four Gigawatts
Energy consultant Zeljko Markovic said a day earlier, on August 24, also speaking to RTS, that the region is currently short around four gigawatts of baseload generation because of reduced output at nuclear plants in Hungary and Romania. “Our region is the most exposed of all,” Markovic said.
Markovic’s price estimate differs from Mladenovic’s. He puts regional exchange prices at around 100 euros per megawatt-hour, against levels close to zero at midday a year ago. Mladenovic, for his part, is describing an average above 150 euros per megawatt-hour on the domestic SEPEX exchange. The two figures track different benchmarks, the region as a whole versus the domestic market, but both agree this autumn and winter carry more risk than last year’s.
Markovic also warns that gas storage is not yet full ahead of winter, and that low Danube water levels are hampering river transport of oil products, adding another strain on supply.
What Comes Next Before Winter
Mladenovic does not expect a major move in prices in the near term. Futures-market pricing points to September levels between 135 and 150 euros per megawatt-hour, as water levels gradually recover and nuclear plants return to service. How the rest of winter plays out, he says, will depend chiefly on autumn rainfall and how well reservoirs can be refilled.
Srpske novine has previously reported that Serbia’s electricity consumption, according to EPS data, jumped to 100 gigawatt-hours a day, which helps explain why the domestic market stays sensitive to every new disruption in the region.
