“The physical infrastructure of the North-South Energy Corridor is expected to become suitable to form the basis for a competitive regional gas market in 2017, and at the latest by that time we also want to have the Croatian resources connected to the system,” said Pál Kovács, Minister of State for Climate Change and Energy of the Ministry of National Development on Thursday at the conference held on “Co-operation in Energy Industry in the Visegrád Countries”.

During the event of the Chamber of Hungarian Engineers, the Minister of State pointed out that, in accordance with the initiatives still under discussion in the European Union, work is under way to set up the North-South Energy Corridor, an infrastructure network development programme aimed at a more diversified supply of energy resources to Central and Southeast Europe.

Minister of State Kovács pointed out: the fundamental goal of the programme was to reduce the region’s dependence on imports through facilitating the North-South gas transport from the Caspian region, the building of a single European energy market and promoting solidarity between the countries concerned.

He also mentioned the highly ambitious low-carbon targets set by the European Union: by 2050 carbon emission is planned to be cut by 80% compared to the 1990 level. In order to achieve this target, solutions must be found for the capture and geological storage of carbon (CCS) and the assurance of nuclear energy safety in addition to flexibility in the integration of renewable energy resources.

Although increase in the ratio of renewable energy contributed to the achievement of the EU’s emission reduction targets, it was insufficient, the Minister of State stressed. In his opinion the Member States’ role in establishing the energy mix should be maintained adding that on a way towards  low-carbon economy, renewable energy sources do not replace but rather complement the existing low-carbon energy generating units. Among future tasks he highlighted increasing the safety of energy generation and the alignment of demand with supply.

He reminded that according to the estimate of the European Commission, approximately 1000 billion EUR was required for various projects to renew the energy system and energy management on the continent, 200 million EUR of which was planned to be allocated for energy infrastructure development. Funds were expected to be raised for the latter by the end of this year, he added.

In her inaugural speech, Mrs Etelka Barsi Pataky, President of the Hungarian Chamber of Engineers emphasised that there was a long way from the previous electricity grid system, co-operating with the soviet network for decades to the one in accord with the Western European network that enabled trade within the single regional market. The technical conditions of transformation were created by the expert engineers of the affected countries and it can be established that the electricity system had always operated safely the President said. She also added that the region’s economy can benefit from the single electricity market only if integration was reinforced by the construction of power transmission lines, co-operation between system managers was improved and the regulatory environment was harmonised. Mrs Etelka Barsi Pataky thinks the members of the Visegrád co-operation should develop a common position on the regulation of the operation of the single European network, and the group members should also harmonise their opinions in issues like nuclear power engineering, the utilisation of their carbon and slate gas resources and the diversification of natural gas resources. The leaders of the chambers of engineers in the countries participating in the Visegrád Co-operation are holding their regular annual meeting in Budapest on 5 October. The energy conference was organised in relation to this meeting and the main patrons of the event were Foreign Minister János Martonyi and Minister of National Development Zsuzsanna Németh.

(MTI - Hungarian News Agency)