Hungarian solar power plants temporarily outperform the Paks NPP on the sunny weekend

Another record broken

Production from large domestic commercial solar plants (above 50 kW) first rose to 2,445.37 MW in the quarter-hour period before noon on Friday 21 April, then reached 2,536.50 MW in the quarter-hour period from 11:15 a.m. on Saturday, and a day later, around noon on Sunday, it briefly reached 2,538.38 MW, according to net commercial clearing metering data on the website of Hungarian Electricity System Operator Ltd. (MAVIR).

The last peak before that was more than a month ago, on 18 March, when solar farm production also increased to 2,372.10 MW between 11:45 and 12:00.

Hungary in the position of an energy exporter

Although these record levels have only been achieved for a short period of time, solar power plants have been increasing their output for longer periods of the day under optimal weather conditions, thanks to the expansion of domestic photovoltaic capacity. On the most recent record-breaking day on Sunday, for example, their production rose to over 2,000 MW before 10 am and remained above this level for more than five hours until after 3 pm

- i.e. they produced more than the Paks nuclear power plant without interruption during this period.

Due to the nature of photovoltaic technology, their production was much lower outside this period, and essentially zero before sunrise and after sunset.

During most of the day, the period of highest solar generation, total domestic power plant production was well above system load, i.e. instantaneous domestic electricity demand. As a consequence,

from about 8:15 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. Hungary was in a continuous net electricity exporting position,

and shortly before noon the export volume reached nearly 2000 MW (1994.83 MW), also a new record, which made the previous peak of approximately 1650 MW, set one day earlier, a thing of the past, after it broke the previous record of nearly 1560 MW, also set on 18 March.

As a result of increasing solar energy production, Hungary is more and more often becoming a major net exporter of electricity. This would in principle be good news for the domestic electricity supply, which on average needs to import around 25-30% of its electricity annually, but the picture is clouded by the fact that during the domestic electricity export periods, which typically occur at weekends, external sales are made at rather low prices - to some extent out of necessity due to the lack of larger storage capacity - as demand is low throughout Europe and solar generation is strong elsewhere, which naturally puts downward pressure on market prices. In contrast, the massive Hungarian electricity imports during the evening consumption peaks, especially in winter, without solar generation, are typically at much higher price levels.

The share of low-carbon sources has also been prominent during these record periods, also due to strong solar and the steady high nuclear generation from Paks. At the time of Sunday's solar record, renewables and Paks (4894.33 MW) together accounted for nearly 95% of domestic power generation (5176.85 MW), while the weight of clean generation (including biomass and municipal waste based generation) was nearly 152% of the use (system load) (3230.19 MW). These proportions are also presumably a historical record, as is the very modest share of fossil sources.

Domestic solar capacity also growing at record pace

The rapid succession of new solar generation records is a consequence of the rapid growth of the domestic solar power stock. The installed capacity of Hungary's solar parks stood at 2,869.298 MW on 1 April, following a record increase in capacity in the first quarter, similar to that of the household-scale solar (HMKE) systems. This is due to the connection freeze - officially introduced in May last year, but in reality already in 2021 - triggered by system and grid challenges caused by the start-up of new solar plants, and to investments following the receipt of demands before the moratorium on HMKE feed-in from last autumn.

The 1,702,406 MW of HMKE capacity at the same time is not included in MAVIR's generation mix statistics, but it is certain that they could have contributed several 100 MW, up to approximately 1,000 MW, to meet domestic electricity demand during the record solar periods described above, even at lower utilisation rates. In other words,

the actual total solar generation and the share of clean renewable sources in the total domestic generation and system load was higher than the statistics in these periods,

so the household solar panels could have contributed significantly to the electricity export record.

Cover photo: Getty Images