There is a barren strip of Danube flood plain in northwest Hungary that will soon be transformed into a 100% green-powered town by the German property company FAKT AG. The €1 billion ($1.1 billion) Hegyeshalom-Bezenye project will provide jobs and housing for thousands of people and include full amenities such as shopping facilities and schools.
The carbon-neutral town will be the size of around 500 soccer fields (1.27 square miles), with most of that being dedicated to the harvesting of vegetables grown in greenhouses. Electricity will come primarily from solar, and biogas power, and cooling will be supplied via geothermal plants. The greenhouse venture will create as many as 5,000 permanent jobs, said Nikolai Ulrich, a board member of FAKT. To make this project happen, the property company is partnering with builder KESZ Group, EON, and the Hungarian government.
Aside from the sweeping infrastructure and horticultural features, Hegyeshalom-Bezenye will also include about 1,000 homes, a hotel, rail station, restaurant, shopping facilities, training units, and schools. Those involved in the venture say it will serve as a model for other conversion sites across the continent – for example, coal regions making the switch to clean energy. Ulrich says it underlines “how a scrap of land and vision can create a green business and community venture of scale.”
The venture will boost Hungary’s supply of herbs, asparagus, soft fruit, peppers, tomatoes, and aubergines in the greenhouses, as well as bass, salmon, and sea bream in its inland fisheries. Hungary hopes to lessen its dependence on importing produce by providing local seafood and vegetables from Hegyeshalom-Bezenye. It also envisions the new futuristic location to become a tourism hotspot.
Hungarian Agriculture Minister Istvan Nagy told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle of the project:
We’re hoping for it to become one of the landmarks for Europe. This investment is the biggest and most complex agricultural and food industrial project of the last few decades and is unique in Central Europe.
Greenhouse horticulture is the process of farming crops indoors to provide customized growing conditions. It’s a growing market in Europe (valued at $18 billion in 2018) that is expected to reach $28.7 billion by the end of 2025.
