The Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulators Authority (MEKH) released its monthly market monitoring report for December 2020. The report found that net electricity consumption in Hungary was 2.6 per cent higher compared to the same period of the previous year. The HUPX DAM (the Hungarian Power Exchange’s day-ahead market) saw several price spikes driven by a combination of factors: falling volumes of Romanian wind-based production, lack of import opportunities from the North, the loss of domestic production capacity and in some cases the lack of operation of otherwise available capacities, according to the report of the Hungarian regulator.
According to the data of December 2020, the net electricity consumption of European countries increased by 0.9 per cent compared to a year before. The monthly average of the day-ahead prices rose to an annual peak in the five largest European markets (as well as in Hungary) exceeding the level of December previous year.
The report notes that low RES production – falling from 35.1 to 30.1 per cent in the power mix – has played an important role in increasing European prices. The production of wind power plants fall by 7.9 per cent (2.72 terawatts-hour), while solar power plants generated 8.4 per cent (0.24 TWh) less and hydropower plants 23.2 per cent less (4.53 TWh) energy. The volume of fossil production (coal 16.3 TWh, gas 35.2 TWh) exceeded the volume of renewable (49.2 TWh) and nuclear production (50.1 TWh), the report noted.
The report found that Hungary’s Hungary’s net consumption was 2.6 per cent higher compared to the same period of the previous year. Meanwhile, Hungarian domestic supply was reduced by the annual maintenance work at the Paks Nuclear Power Plant and the unplanned outages of lignite and gas-fired power plants. The market report showed that the production of CCGTs did not respond to the demand, their loss of production contributed to price spikes in the DAM market.
