Government to maintain the central regulation of energy prices in Hungary

Attending consultations with the leaders of top German companies on Thursday, Minister of Innovation and Technology Laszlo Palkovics emphasised the importance of expanding nuclear and renewable capacities, as well as green transport, to meet climate goals.

“Hungary was among the first European Union countries to set the goal of turning climate neutral by 2050,” he said. A ministry statement noted that Palkovics reiterated the Hungarian government’s standpoint that the costs of the green transition must not be passed on to individuals and families but should be paid by large polluters.

Hungary is insistent on

retaining the results of its scheme to reduce household utility bills,

he said. Thanks to officially regulated prices, bills for natural gas are the cheapest in the EU, while electricity is cheaper only in Serbia, he said.

V4 countries back nuclear energy for climate protection

Palkovics said that by 2030 more than a fifth of the energy mix was expected to come from renewables. Increasing solar energy capacities to 6,000 megawatts will help in achieving this by the middle of the decade, he said. In December, a tender with more than 200 billion forints available will be opened for supporting Hungarian households to introduce solar and energy-saving electrical heating systems, he added.

Also, Hungary’s Climate and Nature Action Plan aims to promote green transport. The government has so far provided 20 billion forints (EUR 55m) for the promotion of purchasing electric vehicles, he noted. In addition,

electric buses are being introduced in settlements with a population of more than 25,000,

he said.

The integration of hydrogen into the network will also help to speed up this process by replacing the use of diesel in heavy vehicles, Palkovics added.

Read alsoInsane price gap between the cheapest and most expensive streets in Hungary

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1 Comment

The Truth says:

19/11/2021 at 15:36

In some ways Budapest makes me think of my one year living in Manhattan, New York. There, the apartments that I visited were so hot and stuffy in the winter that people often had to open the windows whereas in the summer, the air con was so fierce that they were positively cold and at night a 13 tog duvet was needed. The same is often the case here. Not a great way to save energy and be ‘green’.