Index – Economy – Kiss Ambrus: It cannot even occur that there will be no public transport in Budapest
As Kiss Ambrus said: the Office of the Mayor is now investigating how to call for tenders for a shorter period of time, since energy prices have skyrocketed to such an extent that the purchase prices of previous years have now increased by tens of billions.
There will be electricity, just at an astronomical price
No valid bids have yet been received for the annual public procurement for the procurement of continuous traction energy of BKV, however, according to him, this does not mean that there will be no electricity in the lines on January 1.
It is expected that BKV will be able to obtain energy at such a high price that it will certainly be unmanageable for the company.
It seems that this problem does not only affect Budapest and BKV, as it can also be true for MÁV and, of course, public transport in other big cities as well.
Ambrus Kiss pointed out that BKV consumes three times more electricity in the same amount of time than the capital’s annual public lighting. This value is exactly 246 gigawatt hours.
How can you save?
The deputy mayor also talks about the capital’s cost-saving measures. He reminded that the Metropolitan Municipality asked its non-nursing institutions in the summer not to lower the cooling temperature below 25 degrees Celsius, and to keep the heating above 21 degrees in the winter, as each degree of heat saved represents an energy saving that can be expressed in percentages.
In the case of public lighting, the Capital Assembly made the decision to shorten the time of decorative lighting by about two hours, which means a saving of 0.86 gigawatt hours. At today’s prices, this could mean HUF 500 million in one year. According to Kiss Ambrus, however, the real savings would be the energetic modernization of public lighting, which, according to him, is currently taking place and which they would like to speed up.
In addition to the above, Budapest also started saving at BKV, mainly with regard to the use of diesel. The deputy mayor indicated that almost all companies carry out solar programs, which enable them to produce energy locally.
According to Kiss Ambrus, however, the figures for this year will only be available at the end of the heating period, by which time it will be clear how effective the above-mentioned energy saving measures are.
It can’t even arise
The deputy mayor still doesn’t know how Budapest’s budget will get through the rest of the year, but he thinks that it’s not just the capital’s leadership that is like this.
As soon as that said: In the case of Budapest, the restriction of public lighting or the suspension of public transport do not arise either, but anything else would mean only negligible savings, not to mention the fact that it would be a harmful step from a socio-political point of view.
(Cover photo: Kiss Ambrus. Photo: Péter Papajcsik / Index)