Country Update for Hungary

Abstract

This paper gives a brief review of the history of geothermal energy in Hungary and discusses the present state of Hungary's geothermal energy production and utilization. Hungary’s excellent geothermal potential is of course well-known. Traditionally, the country’s geothermal energy production was used for direct heat supply, with most of the thermal water used in spas. Many such projects are currently underway. These focus on geothermal power-plant, CHP, district-heating and GSHP incentives. In 2019, more than 900 active thermal water wells produced about 90 million m3 of thermal water in Hungary, representing 1023.7 MWt or 10,701 TJ/y. The agriculture sector is still a key player in direct use, especially in the SE of Hungary, where the heating of greenhouses and plastic-tents have long traditions. These account for ~ 358 MWth installed capacity and ~ 2,891 TJ/yr production. Geothermal district-heating and thermal-water heating cascade systems represent a major part of Hungary’s direct use, available in 23 towns representing about 223,4 MWth installed capacity and 2,288 TJ/y annual production. Major new projects have been established in Győr and Szeged. Individual space heating (mostly associated with spas) is available in nearly 40 locations, representing an estimated installed capacity of about 77,2 MWth and 299 TJ/yr production. Balneology is historically the country’s most important geothermal application, with more than 250 wells yielding thermal and sometimes medicinal waters. These represent a total installed capacity of 249,5 MWt with an annual use of about 3,684 TJ/yr. Recently, the first Hungarian geothermal power plant project was implemented in Tura, and has a 3 MWe capacity. Unfortunately, the underdeveloped geothermal sector is not showing many other signs of progress, with the lack of of reliable registry documentation making it hard to estimate the real GSHP number. In the family house market and in other official and industrial applications, air-based heat pumps have become dominant. The majority of these new applications are installed in new office buildings.