Hungary's power grid collapse blamed on former PM Viktor Orbán

Prime Minister Péter Magyar accused former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of knowingly allowing Hungary’s electricity system to deteriorate. Magyar said the previous government overloaded the grid with an additional two gigawatts of demand for large industrial and battery‑related investors, while failing to expand grid capacity or storage. Hungary now has over 8,800 MW of solar generation but only about 980 MW of storage, leading to surplus solar power being sold at negative prices and insufficient supply at night or during cloudy periods.

Magyar announced that the current government will award a tender funded with roughly 600 billion forints (about €1.7 bn) from EU resources to build new power lines, substations and higher‑capacity transformers, aiming to modernise the grid, increase domestic energy security and reduce reliance on imports.