Why Belgian Electricity Prices Hit €1,038/MWh: Inside Europe's Heatwave-Driven Energy Crisis

Other European markets that set new records

• Belgium & Netherlands. On 1 July 2025, Belgian and Dutch hourly prices hit €517.57/MWh at 20:00 — already extremely high before the later €1,038 spike .
• France. French power prices rose sharply on warnings that heat would force nuclear output cuts, contributing to 175%+ price surges across affected European markets .
• Greece. In late September 2025, Greek day-ahead prices surged 34.5% in a single day, averaging €141.58/MWh and hitting €425.83/MWh at peak hours — one of the steepest recorded spikes .
• Italy and Spain. Mainland Spain and Italy registered the highest daily electricity demand so far in 2025 during the heatwave .
• General pattern. Multiple analyses by Ember, Montel Analytics, and AleaSoft confirmed that the June–July heatwave doubled average daily prices across most major European markets, with some markets seeing prices 2–3 times higher than typical .

Broader supply-and-demand factors

Market outlook and energy security concerns

• Short-term outlook. The European Commission's Q1 2025 quarterly report noted that after a harsh winter quarter, prices began to ease in spring thanks to higher renewables output and declining gas prices . Q3 2025 saw a surge in negative-price hours (over 500 hours in the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden) as record solar and wind output coincided with weak demand . This points to a growing intra-day price divergence — cheap (often negative) at solar peak, extremely expensive in the evening shoulder hours.
• Energy security concerns raised.
  • Vulnerability of thermal & nuclear to heat stress. The heatwave exposed that Europe's thermal generation fleet is increasingly susceptible to summer heat extremes, which can force unplanned outages precisely when demand spikes .
  • Need for flexible assets and storage. Energy think tanks and grid operators (e.g., Elia, Belgium's TSO) have warned that the growing share of weather-dependent renewables — without commensurate growth in 24/7 dispatchable capacity, battery storage, and demand response — heightens the risk of evening price spikes during extreme weather .
  • Cross-border coupling risks. When Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Germany all face simultaneous heatwave stress, there is limited surplus capacity to import, pushing prices in interconnected markets to co-spike .
  • Call for policy action. European Parliament questions have specifically asked the Commission how it plans to ensure the resilience of nuclear and thermal plants under rising temperatures, and whether grid adequacy assessments (ENTSO-E summer outlooks) adequately capture compounding weather risks .