Austria, Photovoltaic technology status and prospects - Contribution to the Annual report 2003

Austria
Photovoltaic technology status and prospects
Hubert Fechner and Michael Heidenreich, Arsenal Research

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General Framework

Fig. 1 - 22 kW PV System, Institute for Marketing, Upper Austria, KW-Solartechnik.

According to the Kyoto-Protocol, Austria had committed to ambitious CO2 reductions of 13 %. Since then, CO2 emissions have increased; so that today a reduction of 19 % would be necessary to reach this goal. However, photovoltaics is not seen to be amongst the main technologies to reach this short term goal in 2010. In a longer view, PV can significantly contribute to Austria’s Electricity supply; a long term strategy - the Austrian PV roadmap – is just under development, coordinated by the Austrian PV Association “Bundesverband Photovoltaik.”

In July 2002, the new Green Electricity Act (GEA, BGBl. I – Nr. 149/2002) was passed by the National Council and Federal Council (announced in mid-August 2002). Most of its clauses came into effect on January 1, 2003. The Green Electricity Act governs the aid for green electricity and combined heat and power generation throughout the country. It can be seen as an update of the former Electricity Act (ELWOG, 2000). In general, it provides a change of the legislative responsibilities (federal instead of provincial), which occurred as necessary – at least due to the fact that previous forms of aid and charges in the individual provinces varied greatly. It sets the target to meet 4 % generated from new renewable energy sources as well as 9 % of the public national electricity demand from small hydropower by 2008, respectively. Those “new” RES are supported mainly via feed-in tariffs as well as additional investment subsidies to achieve the above mentioned political target quotas.

Due to time and capacity limitations, public PV support in Austria is mainly characterized by discontinuity. PV research funds are nowadays mainly dedicated to support projects within international collaboration programmes such as the IEA PVPS programme or European projects.
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National Programme

For new PV installations, the feed-in tariff stated in the GEA is 0,6 EUR per kWh up to a capacity of 20 kW and 0,47 EUR per kWh for larger systems. The extra costs for the network operators will be compensated by additional supplements on the customer invoices. However, the limitation of 15 MW total installed capacities is stated in the law, up to which the high tariffs will be paid. The installed capacity of more than 10 MW at the end of 2002, and the new applications for new PV installations in the first two weeks of 2003 have shown the inefficiency of the regulation concerning continuity and investments with low risks. Since then, PV installers and module producers are facing a situation of extreme uncertainty as well as the fact that PV is currently only a side issue in solar architecture. To improve the situation caused by the 15 MW cap, some provinces have now reintroduced a direct subsidy system, based on grants; most of them financing about 50 % of the total installation cost.
Hence again, the uniform PV supporting system is replaced by “regional puzzled” schemes. Since the revision of the Green Electricity Act is foreseen in 2005, it can be expected that the PV market will remain quite weak during 2004.
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Research, development

Fig. 2 - 13 kW PV at Vocational School Imst. Tyrol, Siblik-Elektrik.

Austrian PV research activities are mostly focused on national and international project bases. The involved research organizations and companies are participating in various national and European projects, as well as in different tasks of the IEA-PVPS Programme.

The RTD development and approach is widespread located and decentralized orientated. Some principal descriptions of these projects highlight the general RTD trend of photovoltaics in Austria:

Organic Solar Cells based on thin plastic films have received increased attention due to their unique properties. These cell types are probably promising to become the cheapest solar cell in the future. A maximum efficiency of about 2,5 % has been achieved through the bulk hetero-junction cells.
Encapsulation of solar cells, the development of new contact pattern for crystalline cells and coloured cells are being investigated at research departments of industry and at academic institutes.
New concepts for PV-inverters and various aspects of grid-interconnection, not exclusively related to PV but more generally to distributed generation from RES, are the main focus of several EU financed projects, which are jointly carried out by research institutions, industry and utilities.
New solutions for building integration of PV are investigated to reduce the costs and address the building industry by aiming to create a better understanding about chances and challenges of high integrated concepts for roofs, facades and other building elements.
At arsenal research, besides inverter testing, a new module testing facility has been established for qualification testing of PV-modules according to international standards (IEC 61215), as well as research cooperation with industry for developing new PV products.

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Implementation

Fig. 3 - PV capacity installed in Austria between 1989 and 2002, source: Faninger, PV market in Austria.

With an enormous increase of more than 50 % in 2003, installed PV power capacity reached roughly 17 MW by the end of the year.

Between 1995 and 2002, the mean growth of the total capacity was more than 30 % per year. Until the end of 1996, the off-grid sector dominated the Austrian PV market. However since 1997, the majority of new systems were grid-connected according to the overall trend in the IEA PVPS reporting countries.

As in most of the other countries, off-grid installations were the first economic alternative for PV systems. Small stand-alone systems provide electricity to technical systems or for domestic use in Alpine households or mountain huts lying far away from the grid. However, they are not only appearing exclusively in remote areas. In urban sites, PV is increasingly used as an option to supply infrastructure systems such as parking meters or rail-greasing systems.

With improved integration into the built environment, on-grid distributed systems are becoming more and more common place in the public’s interest. More than two-thirds of the overall installed capacity is grid-connected systems in Austria.

PV is becoming more and more visible on Austrian highways, supplying the increasing numbers of screens which inform drivers with actual information about the current traffic situation.

Due to limited space available, grid-connected centralized systems play a minor role and so far, only 400 kW are installed.
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Industry status

PVT Austria, the first manufacturer of PV modules in Austria, producing standard and semi-transparent crystalline silicon panels (production started 2002), continued to produce successfully; even though in 2003, the housing market was limited because of the unsatisfactory support situation.

Concerning further system components for PV systems there are several other manufacturers involved:

Fronius, a power electronics company has been engaged in solar electronics for many years and is now Europe’s second largest producer of inverters for grid connected and stand alone PV systems. They started selling their new IG series inverters in Europe in 2002. Fronius is expanding their market to the U.S. in 2004. More than 90 % of their production is exported to other countries.
Isovolta is manufacturing coloured back sheet laminates for PV modules for the majority of the module manufacturers, worldwide.
Banner Batteries is an important manufacturer of lead-acid batteries for off-grid PV applications.

A new Quality Label for PV installers will be issued by the Austrian Photovoltaic Association. Certified planners and installers are obliged to use products and components certified to the relevant standards, as well as to have quality assurance systems.
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Market development

The long time existing National Photovoltaic Association has restarted by continuing to work with the employed staff, in spring 2003. Since then, a lot of awareness raising activities were performed and a network for dissemination of information was created.

About 30 PV industries are members of the Association. The formulation of the national roadmap, a PV marketing Concept for Austria and the biannual “Youth Solar Award” are parts of its work.

A national PV-network, “PVPS.NET,” was created. It was founded by the Ministry of Transport Innovation and Technology, and aims at supporting the implementation of PV in the building sector.

PV installers and module producers, together with architects, are preparing tools for architects and the building industry; in order to integrate PV more and more as a part of buildings. It has been recognized that it is not only because of the costs, but also due to very practical reasons, that architects are often hindered in their attempts to integrate PV into their building concepts; as well as the lack of arguments to convince building owners to implement PV.
By addressing these topics, various tools for argumentation and education in PV building integration were developed. These tools will be available at the Austrian PV Association’s website, at the end of the project in late spring 2004. A national PV-Conference for the building industry, together with the PVPS programme based on the outcomes of Task 7, as well as the plans for the start up of Task 10, are further tasks to be carried out by this national PV-network.
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Future outlook

The favourable feed-in tariffs paid in some federal states and the new Green Electricity Act regulating the feed-in tariffs for electricity from renewable energy sources on a national level already led to an application boom for new PV installations. However, this development has stopped, due to the limit of 15 MW total installed capacity, up to which new PV installations are supported by the feed-in tariffs.

PV research and development will be more and more concentrated on international projects and networks, following the dynamic know-how and learning process of the world-wide PV development progress.

The more that industry and research organizations contribute to innovative PV applications, the more that demands on training and educational services will arise. It is urgently necessary to develop up-to-date tutorials for growing interest groups in Austria.

Financial incentives and voluntary approaches remain the basis for a stronger PV market in Austria. Updated regulations for subsidizing PV installations and a certain time horizon for investors are essential for a sustainable development of the Austrian PV market.
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