Renewable energy resources in New Hungary development plan: Some general and spatial characteristics

Abstract

The growing significance of renewable energy resources has been one of the most important processes in the field of energy management for the past two decades. This is due to phenomena related to environmental protection, security of supply, economic and rural development, as well as to the abundance of financial incentives (EU grants, constructive national off-take regime). As a consequence of this, the paper concentrates on the general and territorial characteristics of the EU financial instruments for Hungary in the 2007–2013 budgetary period with the objective to enhance the dissemination of renewable energy resources. As an outcome of our research, three very important conclusions were drawn. First of all, less developed regions were more active in submitting proposals though the more developed regions reached higher success rates. Secondly, it was noticed that the “identity” of the successful tenderers influenced the average volume of proposals to a considerable extent. Thirdly, in the case of the successful proposals, the development level and size (of settlements) of the territorial units (districts) had a direct impact on the identity of the applicants and on the average size of proposals.