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Hungary To Up Renewables To 8.2% Of Total Use By '10
c) 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
BUDAPEST (Dow Jones)--Hungary is seeking to increase the precentage of renewable energy within its total energy consumption to 8.2% from the current 5.2% by 2010 in a bid to reduce the country's dependency on imports and to support agriculture, a government official said Friday.
"We have laid out a plan, which will be presented shortly to the government for approval, which sets Hungary's renewable energy production to 8.2% (of total consumption) by 2010," said Gyorgy Hatvani, deputy state secretary at the Economics Ministry at a conference organized by daily Nepszabadsag.
Some 70-80% of Hungary's energy comes from imports, mainly natural gas from Russia, the reliance on which needs to be reduced, Hatvani said.
"Our aim is to reduce our dependency on energy imports and at the same time support agriculture by focusing on the production of bio diesel and bio mass," Hatvani added.
The government will spend 25 billion forints ($122 million) on supporting electricity production based on renewable sources in 2006, Hatvani said.
Hungary is planning to build an industrial capacity to produce 800,000 metric tons of bio ethanol annually in the medium-term, said Zoltan Gogos, an MP delegated by the prime minister to oversee renewable energy issues.
"Hungary spends HUF100 billion annually on financing the storage of (unsold) cereals, therefore it's natural to focus on the production of bio diesel," Gogos said.
The aim is to make the country self-sufficient in bio diesel and the become a significant exporter of industrial alcohol in the future, he added.
Some 2.5 million tons of cereals produced in Hungary could be used for the production of bio diesel annually in a sustainable manner, Gogos said.
Both Hatvani and Gogos agreed that the focused development of renewable energy would yield a significant number of new jobs and would help maintain current employment levels in the otherwise troubled agriculture sector.
-By Edith Balazs, Dow Jones Newswires; +361-267-0623; edith.balazs@dowjones.com [ 26-05-06 1102GMT ]
Date: 26.05.2006
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