Analysts have said that by 2030, Hungary would have the world’s fourth largest production capacity for storage for green energy, behind China, the US and Germany, László György said.

Investments connected to green energy will be at the root of Hungary’s economic growth and well-paying jobs, he told the press conference in Gyor, in north-western Hungary.

The country has already achieved the solar capacity it had targeted for 2030, in an important step to have 90 percent of the country’s electricity produced without carbon emissions by 2030, he added.

To facilitate the green transition, the government has launched a 75 billion forint (EUR 192.3m) solar energy programme and a scheme supporting the purchase of electric cars, as well as a programme to support localities above 25,000 inhabitants only if the buses they purchased were electricity-driven, György said.

Meanwhile, Szijjártó: Energy Supply Must Be Free of Ideology

Security of supply and price are the sole factors determining the government's energy policy, Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs and trade said at the 5th Budapest LNG Summit.

“We don’t take political or ideological aspects into consideration,” Péter Szijjártó told the event. “We are not ready to give up any partnership that has proven reliable… Neither will we terminate any contracts that we benefit from,” the minister said.

He highlighted the importance of diversification, explaining that the government’s interpretation of the term centred on “securing new resources rather than excluding existing ones”.

Given Hungary’s geographical location, the country depends heavily on the region’s infrastructure, so developing the regional network is crucial, he said. “The infrastructure determines the energy mix and impacts on relevant decisions.

Boosting capacities is of vital importance… For us there is no such thing as a redundant gas pipeline,” he added.

He called construction of the TurkStream pipeline “a success story”, and said Hungary would contend with serious difficulties without it.

He highlighted Hungary was the first country apart from Türkiye’s neighbours to import Turkish natural gas.

Szijjártó: Hungary Ready to Purchase LNG from Romania

Péter Szijjártó, the minister for foreign affairs and trade, told the 5th LNG Summit in Budapest that the Slovak-Hungarian interconnector enhanced pipeline capacity between Hungary and Romania.

A supply deal with Shell on LNG and cooperation with Azerbaijan in the area of gas supplies was also an achievement, he said.

Szijjártó said it was regrettable that “Western partners” had “abandoned” Romania’s LNG project, adding that nevertheless Romania would hopefully start production in the future and Hungary was be among potential purchasers of its LNG.

The minister accused the European Union of reducing aid for energy infrastructure developments in south-east Europe, insisting that those projects were key for diversification.

He slammed the European Commission, saying its position was that “developing the network was unnecessary because natural gas had no future and it would not be in the energy mix in 15 years’ time.”

“Even if that were true … what about supplies for the next 15 years? Hungary continues to reject aggressively and artificially removing natural gas from the energy mix… We consider this economic suicide and don’t want to further compromise the competitiveness of the EU,” Szijjártó said.

Szijjártó: Hungary-Slovenia-Serbia Regional Electricity Exchange Deal Inked

A joint Hungary-Slovenia-Serbia electricity exchange can start operating from the second half of the year, boosting the security of supply for all the countries involved, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade said after the relevant deal was signed in Budapest.

Today’s agreement was “excellent news”, Szijjártó said at a joint press conference held with Serbian energy state secretary Veljko Kovačević and Slovenian energy minister Bojan Kumer, after the signing of the BlueSky Project. Security of supply, he said, would strengthen, making trade in electricity between the countries “fast and barrier-free”.

The deal also creates a larger market with a favourable impact on prices, he added. He said the deal concerned cooperation between EU member states and an EU candidate country, “so we have taken another step in the direction of realising the energy integration” of the Western Balkans into the EU.

The minister noted that a German-French energy exchange company backed the initiative, guaranteeing that the system would always be up to date.

Hungary’s electricity supply, he said, was most efficiently served by nuclear energy, which is why the government had decided to expand capacities.

He also referred to expanding solar power capacities, which he said had grown eightfold in the last five years.

​​​​​​​“Our goal is to create energy systems in the region that are as integrated as possible,” he said, adding the emphasis was on electricity supply, as demand was expected to increase by 50% in central Europe by 2030.
 

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