Hungary is harnessing the power of geothermal energy - it offers numerous advantages as a sustainable energy source and reduces the demand for fossil fuels.
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00:00 The fight against climate change is heating up in Hungary. The largest geothermal system
00:09 in the European Union is pumping heat into houses, shops and other buildings in Szeged,
00:15 160 kilometers from Budapest.
00:20 The idea is to reduce gas use by around 50 percent. This is millions of tons of gas and
00:26 millions of tons of CO2 emission that we are cutting here.
00:35 The project was launched by the municipality on an idea proposed by the local district
00:40 heating company, which retrofitted the old gas-based system, a system that dates back
00:46 to the early 1980s.
00:50 Szeged has quite bad air in the wintertime, actually. Basically, the largest CO2 emitter
00:55 of the city is the district heating system. This company has operated on natural gas for
01:00 40 years. What we have been doing in the last two or three years is we are switching this
01:06 gas-based system to geothermal.
01:11 With its network of 27 wells, 16 heating plants and 250 kilometers of distribution pipes,
01:18 the new system takes advantage of thermal energy underground and converts it into warm
01:23 air. To do this, engineers have to drill to find hot geothermal water.
01:33 Geothermal water is a special type of water which is heated by the earth. So it's absorbing
01:40 the heat of the geological area and when we take it out from the original area, we can
01:46 use this water for several purposes.
01:50 This geothermal system costs approximately 70 million euros. 23 million comes from the
01:55 European Cohesion Policy and provides heat and hot water to over 27,000 households and
02:01 over 400 public buildings. That's about half of this city.
02:07 If the plan to cut gas use by 50% works, the district heating company is predicting that
02:11 CO2 emissions will drop by approximately 30,000 tons per year. For Gabriela, a local resident,
02:17 nothing has changed and this is good news, she says.
02:35 According to the experts, the SZEGED model can be replicated in many other cities as
02:40 about 25% of the EU population lives in areas with sufficient geothermal resources.
02:46 Last but not least, the SZEGED project has helped Hungary and the EU diversify their
02:51 energy sources and reduce their dependence on Russian gas exports.
02:55 (dramatic music)
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