The sufficiency-based, the de-growth, and the official – Critical remarks of the electricity chapter of the Hungarian national energy and climate plan based on a comparison to alternative scenarios

Hungary relies heavily on fossil and nuclear fuel imports from Russia. An urgent challenge is to develop a more sustainable and more independent energy system. There is a 2019 and a 2023 (draft) version of the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) but they arguably do not follow this direction. However, there are also alternative scenarios for Hungary that propose more comprehensive changes. This paper compares the targets proposed by the Hungarian NECPs to those proposed in two alternative studies: the sufficiency-based European-focused CLEVER (Collaborative Low Energy Vision for the European Region) scenario (created by a research team including 26 partner organisations from 20 European countries), and the de-growth-based "This Way Ahead" (TWA) scenario (which is the result of a Hungarian inter-university research, coordinated by the ELTE University's energy geography research group). A new element of this recent study is the simulation of hourly electricity supply and demand in these scenarios using EnergyPLAN to compare import requirements, potential surplus generation, and self-sufficiency. The review shows that the NECPs need to be reconsidered to increase the share of decentralized renewable electricity supply in a way that allows progress without increasing energy use and environmental burdens. Priority must be given to the rapid expansion of wind energy capacity by at least 10-20 times, which should be complemented by biogas-based flexible energy supply.