Strong increase in photovoltaic construction in Austria

With almost 250 megawatts of new photovoltaic construction and around 1.7 gigawatts of installed capacity, the Austrian photovoltaic market grew by almost a third by the end of 2019. However, if the target of eleven gigawatts of capacity by 2030 is to be reached, the expansion must proceed much more rapidly. The PV Austria industry association was pleased with the development of photovoltaic expansion, but at the same time worried about the still too slow pace. After all, eleven gigawatts of capacity must be achieved annually by 2030 in order to enable a power supply entirely from renewable energies.

However, PV Austria expects a further increase this year due to additional subsidies, the photovoltaic emergency package and possibly the upcoming Renewable Energies Expansion Act. Here one is confident that an even faster expansion will be possible and that from 2025 at the latest, four times as much PV capacity can be installed annually as before.

Making even greater use of existing areas

According to the report "Innovative Energy Technologies in Austria: Market Development 2019. biomass, photovoltaics, solar thermal energy, heat pumps and wind power", the share of facilities on open spaces rose from three to seven percent and that of facilities integrated into buildings from one to 3.4 percent. In the future, however, suitable areas must be better identified and used for the necessary expansion. PV-Austria CEO Herbert Paierl sees this as a major challenge for the respective state policies. Although almost all federal states recorded a significant expansion, in Salzburg, Tyrol and Styria the share stagnated or even declined.