With the flick of a switch, Austria has become home to its largest battery installation, marking a significant milestone in the nation's energy storage capabilities.
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.
Approximately 3,500 residential battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Austria were accelerated by an investment grant launched in 2018 at the federal level to kick-start the technology. There are also regional incentives available for both small-scale solar and battery storage in Austria.
For the midterm, battery storage will therefore primarily improve grid stability in Germany – at least to the extent that these storage systems are tailored to grid needs and not to the optimization of solar power consumption in households. Younicos is thus focusing on the market for ancillary grid services (frequency response), not arbitrage.
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.
The economics for using batteries with residential rooftop PV systems in Austria still have room for improvement. The federal government of Austria has an ambitious plan to cover 100% of total national electricity consumption with renewable energy sources by 2030 overall.
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).