Publications / Hungarian Energy Market Report
REKK Hungarian Energy Market Report 2012 Q1Published: 1 of March, 2012
The results of the system level reserves procurement | Almost a quarter of the gas market evaporated since market liberalisation | Trader replacing activity in the power sector | Regulation of infrastructure development: EU vs. member state competencies

Table of contents

The results of the procurement of year 2012 system level reserves

The methodology for securing system level reserves underwent substantial change last year, positively impacting the level of purchase costs. In our article, for the most part, we address the procurement of secondary and tertiary regulatory reserves for year 2012. We present the new developments concerning the method applied by MAVIR, then we review and evaluate the results of the tender procedure held at the end of last yea

Diminishing opportunitiesAlmost a quarter of the gas market evaporated since market liberalisation

Following the mild, almost spring-like weather of November and December the troubles of the gas sector reached the headlines and “Have a cold winter!” became the choice of farewell wish at many natural gas conferences. Therefore, we thought it’s worthwhile to review the domestic natural gas consumption of the last few years, if there is any clearly visible tendency, and whether everything can be explained simply by the vagar- ies of the weather, or even contracting a shaman to assure a cold winter is not any more sufficient to return to the consumption level of the “good old times”.

Author: Pálma Szolnoki
Trader replacing activity within the power sector

For the last year or two retail and wholesale competition within the Hungarian electricity market became considerably stronger than in prior periods, even though the trader replacing activity within the retail power market continues to be much weaker than in the wholesale seg- ment. In our article we take a look at the activity of switching service providers for the last few years, also considering retail competition as it evolves under the current regulatory and market framework

Regulation of infrastructure development:EU vs. member state competencies

Last year a number of new EU initiatives on the regulation of infrastructural investments were brought to light: the aspiration of the European Commission to boost the development of the electricity and natural gas infrastructure was escorted by a series of policy declarations and amendments of regulation. These initiatives elicit an important shift in emphasis concerning the competence on transmission networks (and within that, in the first place, on cross-border lines): the power of member states to authorise investment plans becomes gradually superseded by certain normative rules and the Commission’s rights of decision. The draft order of the Commission on Trans- European energy infrastructure, which was presented to the legislative bodies of the EU (the European Parliament and the Council) in October 2011, is in line with this process. Below we review how much further will the sharing of competences between Member States and the Commission shift as a result of the regulatory initiative, in compari- son to earlier regulations.