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Útdráttur:
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Hungary has very good geothermal prospects and the use of geothermal energy has a long history in district heating, agricultural and balneology utilizations. After Turkey, Iceland and Italy, the country was ranked in 4th place regarding installed geothermal direct use in Europe in 2015. Geothermal resources are providing constant energy output, which is independent from weather conditions and time, utilize safe technology, which does not endanger human life and evades the possibility of huge human and environmental catastrophes, as well as having a lower carbon footprint than most other renewable energy utilizations. Therefore, geothermal energy is suitable for reaching various environmental and energy efficiency aims, energy policy targets, and also to reduce fossil energy dependency. Hungary has very ambitious geothermal energy utilization targets to fulfil the country’s EU 2020 aims, which require fast and effective development of geothermal utilization policies and projects. There are several EU and nationally supported projects, however private investors seem to be waiting to enter the Hungarian geothermal market and the number of new project inquiries has been decreasing since 2011.
Therefore, strengthening of geothermal energy policy and related procedures could be a useful asset and toolkit for better enabling new investors to enter the market and help fulfilling the 2020 geothermal energy targets. Support for geothermal exploration and revision of the legislative, financial and policy interfaces and interplay of the institutional, legislative and business environment of geothermal projects in order to remove bottlenecks can have a crucial role in strengthening exiting opportunities and in reducing the barriers of future geothermal development. In this report, current status of the Hungarian institutional, legislative and business environments related to geothermal energy utilization are analysed and evaluated from the investor perspective. Relevant good international practices are incorporated, as well as practical experiences of the first geothermal electricityproducing project of Hungary, which is expected to be online in July 2017. This should provide development recommendations and enable better geothermal development in Hungary. The report draws conclusions concerning the policy and regulatory framework, which is essential and needed to promote geothermal development. |
