Hungary is working on a major overhaul of its energy industry to drastically reduce electricity costs that are currently some of the highest in Europe.
The plan is to achieve energy sovereignty in order to significantly cut natural gas and crude oil imports, Energy Ministry State Secretary Andras Totth said on Thursday. Steps include expanding the lifetime of current nuclear units, ending an investment ban for wind power and boosting the efficiency of solar output with storage facilities.
“Currently, the energy sector is a competitive disadvantage for Hungary, the whole system needs to be overhauled from zero,” Totth told a conference organized by business news website Portfolio in Budapest.
Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar’s administration is working to reverse the country’s growing reliance on Russian natural gas and oil under Viktor Orban’s rule while seeking to sharply reduce its bills for electricity imports. They have dented economic competitiveness and strained the budget due to generous household subsidies.
The goal is to create 4 gigawatts of new wind capacity by 2032 and at least 3 gigawatts of energy storage by 2028, Totth said, noting that Hungary hasn’t had new wind investments over the past 15 years. Procurements for new projects are already underway.
The government is also working on extending the operating life of the 2,000 megawatt Paks nuclear plant while incentivizing more corporate investment into energy efficiency.
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Hungary has built almost 9 gigawatts of solar capacity but often exports electricity when prices are low and imports it when they are high, due to poor storage capacities. Hungary has the highest peak night-time power costs in Europe at €183.1 ($205) per megawatt-hour.
The government estimates wholesale electricity prices could fall by more than 60% to about €50 per megawatt-hour by 2040, compared with about €128 under the current system that relies in party on gas-powered plants to generate electricity, Totth said.
The overhaul plans come ahead of a European Union directive that will ban Russian gas imports and coincides with the need to rein in budget spending. Hungary must reduce its fiscal deficit to 3% of gross domestic product by 2030 from an estimated 7.5% this year to meet the government’s goal of satisfying euro adoption criteria by the end of the decade.
Key to that will be to either better target the government’s lavish household utility-subsidy program — which cost about $2.5 billion last year — or to reduce the fiscal burden by lowering energy costs via a more diversified and efficient energy mix.
The utility subsidy program is “unsustainable,” even with lower gas prices, Totth said.