Hungary ends net solar metering for 320,000 homes

Hundreds of thousands of Hungarian families installed rooftop solar panels under rules that let them offset surplus power against their consumption over a full year. Then the government changed the accounting. Households now sell exported solar power at roughly 5 HUF per kilowatt-hour but buy electricity back at 36 HUF within the price cap, or up to 70 HUF above it (HVG, 24.hu). That seven-to-one gap turned a sound household investment into a losing one.

Hungary's Constitutional Court rejected complaints against the rule change (HVG). The court settled the legal question, but it did not answer whether households can trust future energy rules. And now Budapest is about to channel hundreds of millions of euros of EU money into the same energy system.

The old deal, and how it broke

Under the old "net settlement" system, a family with rooftop panels could export power at noon and draw it back in the evening, paying only for the net difference over a year. The grid worked like a free battery. The new "gross settlement" rules price the two flows separately, and the export price is a fraction of the retail tariff.

More than 320,000 household solar systems face this transition as grandfathered arrangements expire (Portfolio). Some owners were fined for apparent grid exports in areas where feed-in was restricted, even though changed metering logic may have caused the readings. The rules shifted; the penalties landed on the households.

Cheap household power shifts costs to firms

The solar episode pulled the curtain on a deeper problem. An investigative analysis by Telex/G7 described opaque tariff calculations, no published data on where the grid can absorb new generation, and state-linked energy groups that sit across production, networks and retail, setting rules outsiders cannot test (Telex/G7).

Hungarian households pay about 9.8 euro cents per kWh, roughly a third of the EU average, thanks to price caps maintained since 2013 (KSH). Someone pays the difference. Industrial users and small businesses carry cross-financing charges that push their bills well above EU competitors' (Telex/G7). These companies can carry those costs because the state or regulated tariffs eventually cover them, which removes the discipline that would normally force efficiency.

€700 million through a narrow gate

Some 540 billion forints in EU-backed calls are now open for grid upgrades and smart-meter projects (Portfolio). The money sits inside Hungary's revised plan under the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the post-Covid fund that reimburses member states after agreed reforms are completed. The plan's energy chapter is worth more than €700 million, with about €643 million earmarked for electricity networks (Telex).

No payment can flow until Budapest satisfies 27 "super milestones" covering judicial independence, anti-corruption and budget protection (European Commission). Hungary has not yet submitted a payment request. Budapest needs investment and EU cash, but the rule-of-law conditions delay reimbursement, creating pressure to spend fast and worry about governance later.

The calls are open to the transmission operator MAVIR and six distribution licensees, including E.ON and MVM network companies. Households, independent developers and new market entrants cannot apply. If tariff formulas stay opaque and grid-connection allocation stays non-transparent, public money raises the regulated asset base of network operators without making access fairer.

The investment case is real — and so is the access problem

The grid genuinely cannot absorb what has already been built. The EBRD committed €70 million within a €210 million package for a 450 MW solar-plus-storage project, calling it one of the first project-financed hybrid renewable assets in Central and Eastern Europe (EBRD). Romania showed the regional consequence last week: solar covered about 40% of daytime generation but vanished by evening, pushing spot prices past €1,000/MWh (Digi24). Without storage and grid capacity, solar floods the system at noon and leaves buyers exposed after dark.

The Netherlands offers a useful comparison. The Dutch are ending their own solar netting rules by 1 January 2027, with household costs expected to rise from about €770 to €1,030 per year (Essent, Zonneplan). The Dutch transition comes with published grid-capacity data, transparent queue rules and regulated connection timelines. The Telex/G7 analysis found no equivalent public data in Hungary (Telex/G7).

Hungary's grid needs investment. The evidence so far points to an access problem, not only a capacity problem. Payment conditions and tender design could still force better transparency, but nothing in the current structure guarantees it.