Hungary will decide by the end of 2026 whether the planned Paks II nuclear expansion remains necessary, putting one of Central Europe’s largest power projects under renewed scrutiny as more than 8 GW of solar transforms the country’s generation mix.
Energy Minister István Kapitány said the government expects to complete its review before year-end.
The assessment comes as Hungary also considers extending the operating life of the existing Paks I reactors by another 20 years from 2032.
The combination raises a fundamental market question.
Hungary may have more low-carbon generation available for longer than previously assumed, while solar capacity is already producing very large daytime surpluses.
That can weaken the economics of adding additional inflexible baseload generation unless electricity demand, storage and exports grow rapidly enough to absorb it.
Paks II has long been intended to replace ageing nuclear units and preserve Hungary’s large domestic baseload position.
But the electricity system it would enter is becoming very different from the one in which the project was originally conceived.
Solar now dominates new capacity additions.
During sunny periods, wholesale prices can collapse or turn negative, while the market tightens sharply after sunset.
That creates a system increasingly short of flexibility rather than annual energy.
Storage changes the equation
Hungary itself has acknowledged that storage deployment remains insufficient relative to solar growth.
That matters for the nuclear review.
Large reactors provide stable output but have limited ability to respond economically to extreme intraday price swings.
Batteries, pumped storage and flexible generation address a different requirement by moving electricity between low- and high-price hours.
If Paks I operates longer while storage expands, Hungary may have more time to reassess how much additional baseload capacity the system actually needs.
The decision will have regional consequences.
Hungary is one of Southeast Europe’s most important electricity importers and trading hubs.
A large new nuclear fleet could reduce long-term imports and potentially increase exports towards Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia.
A delay or redesign of Paks II would preserve greater regional import demand.
The review therefore matters for neighbouring generators as much as for Hungary.
Serbian hydro and wind, Romanian nuclear and renewables, Croatian hydro and regional gas-fired generation all compete indirectly for the Hungarian market.
The year-end decision will not resolve every question around Paks II.
But it makes clear that Hungary’s generation strategy is no longer being shaped solely by replacing old nuclear reactors.
More than 8 GW of solar, longer Paks I operation and a growing need for storage are forcing the government to reconsider what type of capacity the system will actually value over the next two decades.
