Hungarian EU Presidency: electricity grid development conference held in Budapest

Developing resilient, sustainable electricity grids that are ready for the future is the foundation for the energy transition across the European Union, Attila Steiner, the state secretary for energy and climate policy, said at an electricity grid development conference, hosted in the framework of Hungary’s presidency of the Council of the European Union in Budapest on Monday.

Steiner said the future of electricity grids was an “important topic” in terms of ensuring energy security and implementing the energy transition.

He added that Hungary’s EU presidency was highlighting the strengthening of energy sovereignty and energy security, ensuring affordable electricity for households and competitive energy prices for business, and enhancing the resilience and flexibility of energy markets.

Steiner said the future of Europe was “undoubtedly electric”, pointing to the necessity of electricity to achieve carbon emissions reduction targets. He added that electricity consumption was expected to climb by around 60pc between 2023 and 2030.

He said close to three-fourths of electricity generation in the EU was already green, but added that infrastructure needed to be upgraded to sustain that momentum by balancing out differences between grid supply and demand due to weather-dependent renewables.

Steiner estimated the cost of grid upgrades to accommodate increased consumption to be EUR 67 billion by 2050.

He said the phenomena of negative prices need to be managed.

Mechthild Worsdorfer, the deputy director-general at the European Commission’s DG for Energy, said in an address delivered online that carbon neutrality targets for 2050 couldn’t be met without grid developments. She added that Europe couldn’t stay competitive without cheap, dependable, locally-generated green energy, according to the Draghi report.

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