Regional Energy Reports highlights_EcoEnergyLand
Eco Energy Land (Austria)
PROSPECT2030 – defining an energy action plan for the EcoEnergyLand: the climate and energy model region defines its development path into a low-carbon future
The EcoEnergyLand (EEL) is an Austrian Climate - and Energy - model region, approved by the Austrian governmental Climate Fund. As an association of 18 municipalities within the self-governed province Burgenland, it aims at an overall sustainable development with the main resource renewable energy.
The current consumption of final energy in the region is 547 GWh, of which 54% is for heating and climatization purposes. 15% for electric applications and 31% for mobility.
The total energy generation in the EEL in electricity and heat plants amounts to 134.263 MWh/a, thereof 20% electricity and 80% heat.
The supply mix for the EEL is characterized by a high rate of self-supply. Around 75% of the consumed heat is supplied by renewables from within the region, in the form of (automated) wood heating or biomass based district heat. Also 35% of the required electricity is produced within the region, all from renewable sources. Currently, there is no supply of transport fuel from within the region. The total self-supply rate in the EEL (all forms of energy) is 39%.
But the region has also a big challenge: the new European, national and regional framework for the decade until 2030 requires also new strategies and the use of different sets of key technologies than it was the case in the past three decades, which have been dominated by the use of solid biomass for heat and electricity supply. Although solid biomass will remain a main source for renewable heat supply, in the electricity sector it needs to be replaced by biogas and photovoltaic facilities in combination with storage options. This change in key technologies will be necessary, since 63% of the self-generated electricity is currently provided from biomass combustion.
The examination of a green-gas potential, as a possibility of energy supply for the mobility sector, is also part of the action plan development, since it offers possibilities for further exploitation of the past investments, even when the subsidized feed-in tariffs for the generated electricity has expired.
The results of the regional energy report and preliminary results of the report on the utilization of low-carbon investment funding, as well as the proposal of some of the possible cornerstones for a new development path were presented, discussed and also appreciated in a stakeholders' meeting in December 2019.
Thus, PROSPECT2030 with its innovative approach is providing the optimal support for the development and implementation of a new regional energy action plan in the EcoEnergyLand.
