On 3 August, around eight in the evening, a megawatt-hour of electricity in Slovenia cost 717 euros. In Croatia around 650, in Serbia 550, in Romania 535, in Hungary 510. In that same hour Macedonia was at roughly 217 euros and Bulgaria at around 290. The gap is not small - it is threefold.

Before anyone reaches for the flag, it is worth reading why. Macedonia did not do better that day because it did something smarter than its neighbours. It did better because its consumption and generation profile happened to fit more favourably into a regional crisis dictated by drought and temperature.

Evening is the hour when the system breaks

The mechanism is simple, and that is what makes it dangerous. High temperatures push consumption up because of air conditioning. At the same time, once the sun goes down, solar generation vanishes from the system. Demand peaks at exactly the hour when an entire source of supply switches off. That collision is what produces the highest exchange prices.

Add the drought to that. Low water levels cut hydro output, and they also create problems for thermal plants and nuclear plants that use river water for cooling. In Romania one reactor at the Cernavodă nuclear plant is already offline because of the low Danube, with a risk of restrictions on the second one too. In Serbia low water levels are making hydro generation harder, and the authorities have already called for rational electricity use.

Why 217 euros is not good news

Macedonia is not an island in a regional grid. The price here in that hour was lower, but the very statement that Macedonia is „among the cheaper markets” describes a position inside the same crisis, not a way out of it. When neighbouring exchanges are hitting 700 euros, imports get expensive for everyone who imports - and Macedonia is one of them.

Energy experts point to the same list of solutions that has been repeating for years: more generation capacity, battery storage, stronger cross-border connections, and investment in sources that produce when solar does not. This is not a new insight. It is a list that every regional report has contained for at least a decade.

The question for this winter is not whether we will have electricity. The question is whether the 217 euros of 3 August will remain an argument for complacency, or be read as what it is - a warning that on the next evening when the sun sets, the number could be ours.