Austria must be climate neutral by 2040. With this in mind, Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) presented the “Integrated Network Infrastructure Plan” on Friday, which should serve as a guideline for the expansion of Austria’s network infrastructure.
The network infrastructure plan indicates for the first time in detail where the electricity and gas networks must be expanded. The fossil gas networks will be converted to a climate-neutral hydrogen network in the future. As before, implementation is the responsibility of the regional network operators.
The energy experts agree: the energy transition cannot take place without suitable grids. Currently, excess electricity from renewable sources is partially lost during peak production periods. The reason: the grid infrastructure is missing or too weak to distribute the electricity. In May, about 18,320 MWh of potential storage capacity was lost due to substandard power grids, as the Austrian Power Grid (APG) recently reported.
connect east to west
Electricity grids should be expanded significantly and the east and west of the country should be better connected, said Thomas Kienberger of Montanuniversität Leoben, who helped develop the model on which the network infrastructure plan is based. In addition, the existing gas network infrastructure must be converted for use with renewable gases. In concrete terms, hydrogen corridors are needed for the supply of industry and the stability of the electricity grid, as well as regional gas networks for the collection of biogas.
Climate neutrality in 2040
The legal basis for the network infrastructure plan lies in the Renewable Energy Expansion Act. This also includes Austria’s goal of becoming climate neutral by 2040. The plan has been developed in recent months in collaboration with several experts, including the Federal Environment Agency, the Austrian Energy Agency and the University of Leoben.
WWF: Potentially overrated
The environmental protection organization WWF welcomed the plan’s submission, but criticized the fact that the expansion potential of hydropower was significantly overstated, both in the design and in the Renewable Energy Expansion Act. In many river systems, the ecological load limit has already been exceeded and the further construction of hydropower plants would be an “attack on nature and water protection”.
Source: Krone
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