Members of European-Ukrainian Energy Agency met with E-Control (Austrian State Regulator of Energy Policy) and the Austrian Energy Agency, which implement the twining project Strengthening the capacity of the State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine (SAEE) on the development of energy production from renewable energy sources, production and use of alternative fuels.
Under the twinning project, the Austrian Energy Agency and E-Control have an objective to prepare recommendations to the Ukrainian Government about RES sustainable energy policy development and roadmap to avoid barriers to implement new RES projects. So EUEA members could share with them a view on those issues.
At the same time, representatives from Austria reported about RES, feed-in tariff in their country.
Main aspects of the renewable energy sector in Austria:
• renewable energy is used mainly for electricity and heat production. Thanks to its Alpine topography, Austrian electricity generation is dominated by domestic hydropower – around 60% of total domestic electricity generation;
• wind power capacity grew very quickly, from 54 MW in 2000 to 1 300 MW in 2012. This places Austria among the European leaders in terms of the share of onshore wind power in energy supply;
• Austria has simple feed-in-tariff, no “green” auctions or any other subsidies;
• biomass sector almost employs half of the renewable energy sector with roughly 50% of the workforce;
• around 13% (2,8 GW of 21,8 GW) of the total installed capacity is accountable to wind power;
• share of Solar energy is 5% 1.031 GW) of the 21.813 GW installed capacity;
• At the moment the RES installations are not held liable for imbalances they cause – but this will probably change in the near future (or at least it was planned to adopt the new Green Electricity Act this year;
• If RES is curtailed, they will be compensated. However, Austria in a comfortable position because they have a lot of hydropower and therefore, curtailment is not such a big issue. However, there was not a single case when a RES installation was compensated based on this regulation. This is because there weren`t any cases where it was really necessary to curtail RES;
• More data about FiT in Austria on the photo below.
