Market Trends of Austria Renewable Energy Industry
This section covers the major market trends shaping the Austria Renewable Energy Market according to our research experts:
Wind Segment Expected to Witness Significant Growth
- Austria has a significant renewable energy resource potential, mainly hydro, wind, solar, and bioenergy. The country's renewable energy sector is currently dominated by hydropower technology, but wind energy witnessed incredible growth in the last 10 years. The wind power growth targets were achieved with the help of evolving innovation that directly impacted the costs of the technology. The sector witnessed a continuous downfall in deployment costs in the last decade.
- According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the share of wind energy in the renewable electricity mix was around 15% as of 2020. It is projected to expand by up to 26% by 2030, as many wind energy projects are on track to get added to the national grid in the coming years.
- For example, in February 2022, the wind technology provider, Wien Energie GmBH, commenced the construction of a new wind park in Lower Austria, the Trumau wind park. The 27.6MW wind park will be established with the installation of eight Vestas V117 turbines of 3.45 MW each in the Baden region. The project will be commissioned by the end of 2022.
- The European Union also contributed to the sector's development recently. In 2020, the European Investment Bank announced plans to provide EUR 63 million worth of funds to finance the construction and operation of two new wind farms in Austria. The 43.5 MW wind farms (Prinzendorf III and Powi V) are expected to come online within 2-3 years.
- Such tremendous support from the public and private organizations to increase the wind power capacity is expected to positively impact the growth of the wind energy sector.
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Government Policies Expected to Drive the Market
- The Austrian government has taken concrete steps to power all the power-consuming sectors of the economy with sustainable power generation methods. It implemented many laws and initiated programs to increase the share of renewable energy sources in the power generation domain for effective sectoral decarbonization of residential, commercial, and industrial sectors.
- Renewable sources accounted for 80% of power generation as of 2020. This remarkable success was largely due to the initiatives taken by the country's energy department in the form of incentives and almost all kinds of support for renewable energy projects, from financial aid to ease of doing business for the renewable energy companies. The government has set a more ambitious target of 100% renewable power generation by 2030. New laws to promote the development of renewables were recently passed by the authorities to fast-track the process.
- In March 2021, the federal law on energy expansion from renewable sources, the Renewable Expansion Act (EAG), was passed in the Council of Ministers, Austria. The regulations contained in the Act support the promotion of wind technology-based power generation through market premiums for wind power installation rather than feed-in-tariffs.
- Additionally, in 2021, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance (MOF) published the draft bill for the 'Ecological Social Tax Reform Act 2022', which has the introduction of Carbon Tax. It includes national emission certificate trading, which is expected to start in July 2022. The motive is to price the greenhouse gas emissions for companies trading in fossil fuels and related businesses.
- Such reforms will boost the use of renewables in the energy sector in the coming years.
