The share of renewable energy sources in Hungary’s gross energy consumption increased to 13.9 percent in 2020, ensuring the country met EU targets on the promotion of clean energy, new data shows.
Reporting on the 2020 figures, the Hungarian Energy and Utilities Authority (MEKH) revealed that the production of primary renewable energy had increased by 1.4 percent on 2019’s figure, with the production of primary fossil fuels and nuclear energy decreasing by 5.7 percent and 1.5 percent respectively.
Primary domestic consumption followed a similar trend, with primary renewable energy sources increasing by 4.6 percent, whilst primary fossil fuels were down 2.1 percent and nuclear energy falling by 1.5 percent. Overall, primary domestic consumption decreased by 1.5 percent on the previous year.
A significant part of the source of primary domestic consumption was provided by imports of crude oil and petroleum products, and natural gas, with a total net import volume of 549,974 terajoules. However, the agency confirmed that import dependency as a whole decreased by 12.9 percent to 56.2 percent in 2020.
MEKH data showed the amount of energy consumed by end-users decreased by 1.2 percent compared to the previous year. Within this, total energy consumption in the transport, industry and tertiary sectors also decreased, while domestic consumption increased, which according to the agency, was primarily due to the weather during the heating season and the coronavirus pandemic.
Similar to the trend in recent years, the decline in biomass production and use continued in 2020, albeit less drastically in comparison to other years, falling by 1 percent.
The production and consumption of solar energy continued to thrive, up 59.3 percent from 2019’s figures. By the end of 2020, the capacity of the solar panels connected to the grid was more than 2,000 megawatts, exceeding the installed capacity of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant.
