Energy Consumption Down in Hungary

Energy consumption in Hungary decreased in December last year compared to the same month of the previous year, with natural gas consumption falling by 24% and electricity consumption by 8.2%, the Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority (MEKH) said on the basis of data published on its website.

According to the communiqué,  based on data including preliminary estimates of small household power generation, electricity consumption fell by 8.2%. The maximum gross system load was 4.5% below its peak in December last year. Generation decreased by 2% compared to the same month last year, while the Hungarian import share was around 28%.

According to MEKH, Hungarian natural gas consumption fell by 24% year-on-year, with peak day consumption at 503 gigawatt-hours, the lowest since 2014. The net import volume of Hungarian supply was 3.1 terawatt hours. This is a significant increase (23%) compared to December last year, when gas temporarily did not arrive in Hungary under long-term contracts and therefore storage supply dominated, they said.

They added that December's net imports were, however, significantly below the usual winter net imports, and even fell to almost half the low level of November.

The agency said that the role of withdrawals in supply had increased compared with November. In December, domestic storage ended the month at a 70.4% fill level, with 48 terawatt-hours of stock, 14.5 terawatt-hours higher than the year before.