Hungarian energy market in critical situation

The prices on the energy market have never been so high in Hungary than on 11 January this year. Prices climbed up to €150/MWh, or even up to €300 on the Hungarian energy stock exchange (HUPX), as opposed to the average price of €50 last year, Napi.hu reports.

Prices were high only during the last two weeks of January, and not so high in the last two years. Before, high prices have not caused any problems in the energy system, researcher of Regional Centre for Energy Policy Research told Napi.hu.

The permanent cold weather in January influenced the whole European energy market. For example, in Germany, market prices drastically went up mainly because wind powers could produce less energy.

A record was set up in energy consumption in Hungary on 11 January 2017. 17,000 MW energy was consumed one day; this is 6.5% higher than the usual amount. Less energy was imported into the region as usual, while the cross-border capacities were fully used. Therefore, energy demand could be satisfied only by activating the spare power plants.

Hungary receives low priced electricity from three countries: from Austria, Slovakia and Ukraine. Capacities were fully used in the cold days, moreover, the amount of the daily import reduced with 200 MW from the direction of Austria. This was not considered an extreme decline, there have been several similar occasions before, the researcher told Napi.hu.

Some of the Hungarian power plants also fell out of energy production. The Mátra Power Plant immediately broke down because coal froze in the storage tanks. At the same time, the gas bloc of another power plant stopped operation, too, due to technical reasons.