Minister of National Development Zsuzsa Németh inaugurated the biomass power plant of Pannonpower, the subsidiary of Dalkia Energy Ltd., in Pécs on 7 November, 2013. Thank to the investment worth some HUF 24 billion of the company present in Hungary for twenty years, the district heating supply of the Baranya County seat, as the first in the country, has become entirely based on renewable energy.

Zsuzsa Németh called the construction of the biomass boiler heated with herbaceous agricultural by-products, whereby over 80 million cubic metre of natural gas can be replaced per annum, a success of a new attitude and a novel way of thinking. The minister underlined that the Government and the Ministry had done everything in the past three years to reduce Hungary’s dependence on energy import.

The investment enabled the utilisation of biomass building on local resources, ensuring a transparent cost structure and avoiding international price effects, the minister emphasised, and the thus established end user prices served the reduction of overhead costs. She also mentioned that the plant was to boost agricultural producers’ revenues in South Transdanubia by over HUF 4 billion per annum. Through the operation of the plant, environmental burden can also be reduced: in the case of the straw-fired block, the total estimated amount of carbon-dioxide spared is 150 thousand tons per year. The power plant gives work for 170 employees altogether.

It is also in Pécs where the biggest wood chips biomass fuelled block in Central Europe operates, producing almost one third of the district heating supply of the county seat since 2004. By the newly inaugurated herbaceous biomass block Hungary has made another step towards meeting the country’s commitment of reaching 14.65 per cent share of renewable energy in primary energy use by 2020. This share was already 9.3 per cent last year, whereby the target for 2016 was earlier met.

The two biomass blocks of Pannonpower produce thermal energy sufficient for the district heating of over 31 thousand dwellings and 450 public institutions in Pécs, as well as electricity more than enough to cover the total energy needs of the city, for the national network.

(Ministry of National Development Communications Department)