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Austria

 

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Current Situation
Austria is a mountainous country. More than 60 % of its surface is covered by Alps. In Upper and Lower Austria, to the north of Danube lies a part of old mountains Czech Masiv that stretches also to Czech and Bavaria. Little Carpathians are situated on eastern boarder.

Only about one forth of the country’s total area of 83 853 km² is occupied by hills and lowlands. Only 32 % lies at altitude lower than 500 m and 43 % of land is covered by forestry. The highest elevation point is Grossglockner (3 798 m) and lowest Neusiedler See (115 m).

Renewable resources cover 56,6 % of country’s electricity gross consumption (Eurostat 2008):
 water 49,6 %
 wind 2,4 %
 biomass 4,5 %
 solar 0,021 %

Electricity production is divided between coal power plants 33 % and 67 % renewable resources. Production capacity of electricity is 19 166 MW of which 11 853 MW is from water power stations and 969 MW from wind power stations. (Eurostat 2008)

Austria, as one of the key and most important actors on the renewable resources market, is paying the same attention to buildings thermal insulation systems which lead to large energy savings. Building thermal insulation systems in Austria with a long tradition often over 30 years prove their experience.

Perspectives
Country’s policy aims to reach as high share of renewable resources energy as possible which leads to lowering the greenhouse gases emissions. Austria committed itself to increase the share of electricity produced from renewable resources on gross domestic consumption to 78,1 % by 2010.

Action plan of Upper Austria for example aims to double the share of biomass and solar energy or to decrease energy consumption in Upper Austria by 1 % by 2010. Since January 1 2003, all electricity producers in Austria are obliged to make public information about how and where their energy is produced. Till the end of 2003 they just had to publicly release information about percentage share of individual energy sources on production. Austria was the first country to require that source of all produced energy is identified.

Country supports biomass heating by subsidies and co financing. Grant for purchasing machine for burning wooden chips represents after fulfilling all conditions nonrefundable financial support of 30 % of total investment costs, maximum 2 200 EUR per one machine. About half of all subsidies in Austria are paid only to support biomass energy. European funds designated for construction of renewables are also helping to support production of renewable energy.

Austria provides subsidies for solar-thermal systems for private houses which are currently financed from federal funds with financial assistance from communal budgets. Costs for purchasing solar systems are tax deductible. Sum of all subsidies Austria provided for renewable resources energy production is 266 millions EUR.

In Upper Austria, an important part of the country inhabiting around 1,4 millions people and consuming 25 % of all Austria energy, 30 % of primary energy consumption is covered by renewable energy sources. A development with very characteristic name, SolarCity was built in Linz, Austria. Its construction is based on using primarily solar energy. Maximum limit of heat consumption per year was set to 44 kWhm-2 which means that all buildings reach the status of “Low Energy House”.

Key Players
Austrian Energy Agency – founded in 1977 as a non-profit organization; it has 80 employees and yearly turnover of 7 millions EUR. Agency is government’s main partner in renewable resources area. Other important partners:
 E.ON – energy company
 State energetics company Verbung
 Ökoenergiecluster – association of Upper Austrian and Southern Czech companies and organizations working in environmental friendly energy segment
 Austrian Biomass Association
 AustriaSolar association
 AEE Austrian group Renewable Energy
 Hobby group Wind Energy
 Private farmers – working on production of wooden chips for heating facilities

An example of completed project in RES is the central heating facilities in Kremsmünsteru – realization of the project was financed by so called “Energy Contracting” method where three partners made a contract: Kremsmünster Monastery – fuel supplier and heat consumer, Ing. Aigner Wasser-Wärme-Umwelt GmbH (the “contractor”) taking care of projecting, construction, financing and also operation and maintenance of the facility and heat delivery, and WBG Wärmebetriebe GmbH as a heat grid operator. The facility has a total output of 1 MW and production of 3 millions kWh of heat per year. It is buried into ground which ensures easy feeding with wooden chips and it is also sensitive to landscape character.

Job demand
Turnover of all renewable energy carriers – excluding middle and large size water power plants – was in 2004 1 461 millions EUR and 1880 millions EUR in 2005. There was about 13 560 jobs in renewables in 2004, in 2005 it was 17 600. The main aim of Austria Solar association is to strengthen the market with solar equipment. Currently 220 000 households in Austria own solar-thermal system which means that approximately every fifth family house is equipped with solar heating system. 20 000 yearly increase in new installations of these systems is expected in Austria. This will increase number of jobs in this area.