The government is launching a tender in January aimed at helping companies build industrial energy storage systems, the state secretary for energy told a forum in Komárom, in northern Hungary, on Thursday. The scheme’s budget of 62 billion forints (EUR 164m) will be disbursed to winning bidders, helping to boost the country’s total storage capacity of 20 megawatts to 400 megawatts by mid-2026, Gábor Czepek said. It is crucial for Hungary to be able to store large quantities of green energy as soon as possible, he said, adding that the country’s energy sovereignty, built on green and nuclear energies, was scheduled to be secured by 2030. Meanwhile, the lifecycle of the existing blocks of the Paks nuclear power plant can be extended until 2057, he said, but the project to add new blocks must be completed by early 2030s, “with the current investor and current investment environment”.