A study 1 carried out by the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien, AEE INTEC, BEST and ENFOS presents the market development of energy storage technologies in Austria for the first time.
Of these, approx. 94% were built with public funding and 6% without. The total inventory of photovoltaic battery storage systems in Austria therefore rose to 11,908 storage systems with a cumulative usable storage capacity of approx. 121 MWh.
A total of 840 tank water storage systems in primary and secondary networks with a total storage volume of 191,150 m³ were surveyed in Austria. The five largest individual tank water storage systems have volumes of 50,000 m³ (Theiss), 34,500 m³ (Linz), 30,000 m³ (Salzburg), 20,000 m³ (Timelkam) and twice 5,500 m³ (Vienna).
Austria has chosen to prohibit permanent geological storage of carbon dioxide with very few exceptions ( Federal Act Prohibiting Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide) and to evaluate international experience with CCS in five-year intervals. As legally required, the prohibition of CCS is currently in the evaluation phase of the five-year cycle.
In 2020, Austria had a hystorically grown inventory of hydraulic storage power plants with a gross maximum capacity of 8.8 GW and gross electricity generation of 14.7 TWh. This storage capacity has already played a central role in the past in optimising power plant deployment and grid regulation.
Civil society and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play a big and ambivalent role in Austria’s energy policy: on the one hand, NGOs, movements like Fridays for Future, or citizen’s initiatives but also non-organised members of the public are heavily engaged in the promotion of renewables on a policy level.