Record Weekend for Solar Power Generation

Sunny spring weather has led to new records in solar power generation in Hungary, the Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority (MAVIR) has announced. First on Friday, March 17, in the midday hours, 2,343 MW, and then on Saturday, exceeding this with a preliminary value of 2,362 MW (in the quarter hour between 11:30 and 11:45), the all-time PV output record was broken in the industrial category, i.e. solar systems above 50 kW.

This is about 155 MW higher than the previous peak of 2,207 MW recorded on March 4. Sunday's maximum solar power output value rose to 2,232 MW, which was also exceptionally high, but could not beat the previous absolute record.

“At the time of Saturday's record, 65% [~2 718 MW] of our system load, i.e. the average electricity consumption of the country per quarter, was covered by renewable generation, of which solar power accounted for 56.5%. It is important to emphasize that this record production value was by nature only achieved in this quarter of an hour by industrial-scale solar systems, i.e. they contributed less than this during the day,” the authority says.

It also finds it worth pointing out that, in the case of sunny weather, “we have now seen a trend towards more significant electricity exports, as was the case on Saturday, when our electricity exports ranged between 10 and 1545 MW. The fluctuation between the minimum and maximum import-export balance for the day as a whole was very significant, at 3,593 MW, which can pose serious challenges to maintaining system balance. At the same time, on Saturday, for most of the day, significant de-balancing was necessary to maintain the balance, with a maximum of 433 MW.”

The installed capacity of industrial photovoltaic (PV) generators (above 50 kW) is currently 2,630 MW, while the installed capacity of household PV generators (HMKE) is around 1,632 MW. Continued solar output records are expected as additional solar plants are connected and sunshine hours increase. The authority’s measurements do not include the values produced by HMKE.