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Green energy in Austria

Jan 27, 2005 / alpMedia
Things are looking good for green energy in Austria. In the region of Lower Austria, for example, 2004 saw the construction of more biomass heating plants, biogas digesters and wind power plants than ever before. Today about seven percent of the electricity generated in Lower Austria is a product of wind, biomass or biogas.
The new facilities built in 2004 represent a total investment of 204.6 million euros. The trend is to build smaller biomass heating plants with compact networks rather than invest in large-scale plants. At present the homes of some 12,000 Lower Austrians are heated with the help of biological resources, with a total of 240 such plants on the grid.
Austria as a whole is turning increasingly to wind power. In 2003, 108 wind power plants were built with a rated output of 192 megawatts. That makes a current total of 424 wind power plants on the grid generating almost 1.2 billion kilowatt hours, corresponding to about 2% of total consumption in Austria or the annual consumption of 350,000 households. The operators of these power plants have appealed to the government to renew the feed-in tariff ordinance that expired at the end of last year as quickly as possible. They say this is essential if Austria is to meet the EU target of 22.1 percent renewable energy by 2010.
Information and sources: www.igwindkraft.at (de), www.noe.gv.at/nlk (de)