31:29
"I would never have expected to see a massive solar farm like this in this country. And yet, here we are." …in the heart of Hungary. That until this year was led by this guy. "Orbán and his right-wing government never were exactly known as champions of climate action." Orbán called the EU's climate policy a "utopian fantasy". So, when I was reporting from here in 2018 and 2023, I had no idea that Hungary was quietly becoming Europe's solar champion. Today they're ahead of Spain, Chile, Greece and Pakistan. All countries that get a lot more sunshine.
"So, what the heck has been happening here in Hungary?" "To find out, there couldn't be a better place than this: One of Hungary's biggest solar construction sites. "Oh, you can already see the solar panels. They're like little tiny roofs." When finished, this 450 megawatt park will be able to supply about 106,000 households. That's almost twice as big as Hungary's current largest solar park. And this is the guy in charge of it all, László Módos. He is the head of development at the company that leads this gigantic project and has been part of it from the start. And even he says Hungary isn't the most obvious choice
to become Europe's solar champion: "You can find countries which have better solar irradiation. But still, Hungary is among those countries where from investment point of view the solar irradiation is satisfactory. Not only the irradiation is counting when you are making an investment decision, but also other factors like availability of land, availability of grid connection, and also, for example, the type of the soil, the landscape." This place east of Budapest offered all those things. The whole project started back in 2021. But it took four years of planning before the excavators started going in September '25.
Today, about 90% of the panels are installed. The plan is for the first electricity to flow into the grid by September 2026. "When you look at the size and all the construction, it's hard to imagine that the planning phase takes longer than actually building everything." So far so good. But here's where it gets weird. A project this massive usually has some kind of safety net: government money, or a big customer that will be buying electricity for years.
This one has neither. László and his team tried, but he says potential buyers just wouldn't pay what he needed. "So, we have to generate the return of the project from the electricity market, which of course makes a big risk for the project because we cannot predict, you know, for long term the price level of the Hungarian power exchange." To understand why this park works the way it does, we need to go back to when Hungary's solar boom actually started. In 2008, Hungary established the first solar subsidy: Developers would get a fixed price for their electricity. This price wasn't market based, but guaranteed by the government. That meant investors faced absolutely no insecurities
about how much money they're going to make. But for the first six years, solar power in Hungary stayed stagnant. The government subsidy wasn't enough to pay for all the expensive solar panels needed; one expert tells me. And Orbán had a problem. The EU started setting goals for renewables, along with fines for countries that didn't meet them. First goal: 20% renewables by 2020 and later, 42% by 2030. But when it comes to renewables, Orbán had a very specific taste. And who to better ask than Péter Kaderják. A state secretary for the Ministry of Energy and Climate Policy, he worked in Orbán's government on the subsidies that sparked the solar boom.
"Did Orbán just not like wind turbines?" "That was mostly the reasoning: we have wind, but it's not as good resource as solar. And also indeed there was this kind of dislike from the very high political leadership. So the two together resulted in that fairly one-sided development." At the same time Orbán's government needed to meet those EU targets, they were putting regulations in place that wind turbines needed to be twelve kilometers away from any residential areas. This stopped wind parks almost entirely in their tracks. That left Hungary's energy system with one choice: solar. And that's where the old fixed-price subsidy came back into play.
Here's how it worked: "The price was determined at a certain level. Let's say it's €100." This is László Szabó. He spent nearly a decade researching energy markets and renewable energy in Hungary. He says that in the lead-up to 2017, many developers were ready to start their projects with this locked in price, but were delaying for one simple reason. "If you are able to delay your project, it would mean that every year your cost will go down. So, if you are able to delay your system by three or four years, it would mean an enormous increase in your profit rate." That's because the solar panels
were getting cheaper over time even as the €100 price stayed the same. Great news for investors. Then, in 2017, a new state bonus payment was set up. For developers, this meant. "Whenever they sold electricity to the market, they would get a little extra money from the government." But because it was a market-based system, prices collapsed for developers compared to the fixed model by about 45 percent. So, naturally solar developers rushed to still get approvals under the old system. In just four years, Hungary's share of solar electricity exploded from 1% to 10%.
Overtaking Germany, Spain and Greece that had started way earlier with solar. All mostly thanks to those fixed price solar parks, that kept on getting built. And for Orbán, handing out all this money in subsidies wasn't about climate action, but. "He loved the idea of self-production. I remember when we had one conversation, we came up with the idea, you know, that, you know, producing solar electricity back at home is like producing tomatoes in your garden. So, it's like self-sufficiency. He said, oh God, this is a great idea. So, he loved it." And right into this gold rush, László and his team started planning their mega park in 2021. But right around that time, things started to take a turn in Hungary.
"After everybody went like: "Yes, let's build solar anywhere we can", the people in charge of distributing the electricity ran into a problem. They couldn't fit all this solar power into the power grid." So, for the past three years, no new grid connections have been granted for big solar parks. "And you guessed it: no grid connection, no solar park." Usually, setting up the connection is organized by the power grid operator. But László wanted to move this project ahead quicker. So, he went a different route.
"We are constructing the whole grid connection point, which will be handed over to the Hungarian TSO, for free. We think that we can manage the time and the cost of this part of the investment more efficienty." "So, it would basically take longer if the Hungarian TSO would do the grid connection?" "Yes." Building it yourself, paying for it yourself, then handing the grid connection to the state for free. That's what it takes to get a solar park connected in Hungary right now. And it's why, after the record build-out years, the pipeline of new projects is drying up.
All this is happening because Hungary is experiencing the same as other countries with a lot of solar: The power grid can't handle all the electricity thrown at it during midday. That's also a reason why in this park, they didn't orient the panels south, but to the east and west. "Because when we have the panels in a V-shape, we are collecting everything." This is Matias Fuentes Andaur. He coordinates more than 200 people to build this solar park. "So, the sun is just following the same direction of the models instead of putting in just the South plot, which is the sun coming and does the energy in the noon.
We are collecting from all of the points when the sun is running." Meaning, this solar park generates electricity more stretched out through the day instead of slamming the grid with a massive peak around midday. With the east-west orientation, they can also use land more efficiently because the rows of panels can be placed much closer together." And its not just the grid that struggles with all of this new solar energy in Hungary: its also the price for electricity. See how it's going down and even becomes zero in the middle of the day. That's mainly because electricity from solar floods the market. But there is a way to solve this drama.
160 of those solutions will soon be installed in the middle of the solar park: Batteries. They'll be able to absorb the electricity generated in the solar park for up to four hours. The electricity can then be sent into the grid during the evening hours when it is needed the most. Or in other words… ".when the wholesale electricity prices are the highest on the power exchange. That's why without the battery energy storage systems, the PV projects are not any more viable." For years, battery storage in Hungary was practically non-existent. But Péter Kaderják thinks this will change soon.
"Three years ago, installed battery capacity was like nothing. So, a few megawatts in the whole system. This year overall installed capacity might reach 1.5 [to] 2 gigawatts. We don't have enough storage today, but we are on track maybe to correct this." "Hungary didn't go solar to save the planet. Not even a little bit. It went solar because it's cheap power from their own backyard.
It's just really good deal. And weirdly, that's the lesson here: you don't need to care about the climate for clean energy to make a lot of sense, and to build it out stupid fast. But the job is only half done. Until the batteries actually show up, the solar champion Hungary is limping a little. Were you surprised to learn who Europe's solar champion is? Let us know in the comments, and don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more stories like this."
