Table of contents

While last year the domestic and neighbouring electricity markets were characterised by a substantial decline in prices, the settlement price for positive balancing energy in Hungary grew by more than 50%. In our article we ponder if the current high level of Hungarian balancing energy prices is justifiable. In our analysis we put the development of domestic balancing energy prices into perspective by comparing them to Hungarian spot prices, the fuel cost of regulating power plants and balancing energy prices of other European countries.

In our article we examine if the allocation system of cross-border transport capacities on the Hungarian side facilitates the maximum possible utilisation of the available physical infrastructure. We analyse the attributes of the annual and monthly cross-border capacity auctions, present the trends of auction revenues at MAVIR, and finally articulate specific recommendations to alter the allocation method with which the conditions of use of the international transport infrastructure could be substantially improved.

In this article we describe the developments of natural gas consumption in Hungary between January 2008 and October 2009. Our analysis is mostly descriptive in its nature. We used publicly available data from Eurostat, the Hungarian Energy Office (MEH) and MAVIR in our calculations. Our goal was to better understand the structural characteristics of the decline in natural gas use last year.

Below we review the main results of our long term forecast for national energy use. Future energy consumption is an essential issue from the perspective of energy producing companies, but also with regard to the fulfilment of the EU commitments of Hungary. By 2020 Hungary has to supply 13% of its gross energy use from renewable sources, while also achieving a 20% reduction in energy use. These percentage targets imply that the measures necessary to attain these goals have to be tailored to the anticipated level of energy use of the country.