Another Record in Hungarian Solar Power Production

On Tuesday, Hungary's green energy production reached new highs: according to MAVIR, the electricity system operator, industrial plants generated an all-time high of 3,747 megawatts (MW) in the quarter-hour starting at 11 am. Including domestic and captive power plants, the total solar generation was 6178 megawatts, the Ministry of Energy (EM) said on its Facebook page on Wednesday.

It said that the total installed capacity of solar power plants stood at 7,831 megawatts as of early March. According to available data, the huge capacity was utilized for the first time at the time of Tuesday's record-breaking decision to generate more than 6,000 megawatts. The industrial solar power plants, with a total capacity of 4,389 MW, alone generated the equivalent of 84% of the current gross system load during the recent peak period, they said.

They noted that Hungary was previously expected to reach 6,000 megawatts of installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity by 2030, a figure that was already well exceeded last year.

According to the release, a quarter of Hungary's domestic electricity generation came from solar last year, the highest share in Europe. Together with the units of the nuclear power plant in Paks, the country is increasingly able to meet its domestic demand from carbon-free sources alone, as well as increasingly from exports.

The number of solar power plants, including industrial ones, already exceeded 300,000 units in February. It is expected that by March, the household-scale ones, mostly on the roofs of detached houses, will reach this milestone on their own. As a result of the momentum in capacity expansion, domestic solar PV production could often run up to new historic highs in the coming weeks and months, they wrote.