The Country’s Largest Energy Storage Facility Is Being Built in Szolnok

Gábor Czepek, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of Energy, announced in a video on social media that Hungary’s largest energy storage facility is being built in Szolnok (central Hungary), noting that the issue of storage capacity is key to the country’s energy sovereignty.

“Besides nuclear, we rely mostly on solar energy, that is weather-dependent and not necessarily produced when we need it,” the politician said. He added that the tenders currently under way will provide a total of HUF 260 billion (EUR 634 million) for the installation of energy storage: almost 100 billion for industrial energy storage and around HUF 160 billion (EUR 390 million) for businesses and families.

He also referred to the greening of the energy sector, an area in which Hungary is particularly well placed, according to the State Secretary. As an example, he said that

the country’s total solar energy production capacity has doubled since 2022, and storage is “moving at a brisk pace:” storage capacity will double next year and increase to 20 times its current level by 2026.

The aim is to have at least 1 gigawatt of storage capacity in Hungary by 2030.

The Szolnok investment will therefore also contribute to making Hungary’s energy supply cleaner, more predictable, secure and cheaper, as this is necessary for our daily well-being and to strengthen the competitiveness of our economy,”

he said.

In a statement accompanying the video, the Ministry of Energy said that in 2024, Hungary will enter a new era of developments to improve the resilience of the electricity grid, increasing its flexibility. Among the measures to stimulate the use of green energy, the program to promote grid-integrated energy storage was already approved last year. Thanks to a public contribution of HUF 33 billion (EUR 80 million), storage facilities with a total capacity of 38 megawatts will be installed at 13 sites. The developments are scheduled to be completed by summer 2025, they said.

In the largest project, transmission system operator MAVIR is building a 20-megawatt storage facility at Szolnok with HUF 15 billion (EUR 37 million) in funding, that will be the largest in Hungary when completed, they added.

Via MTI, Featured image: Pexels