General Framework and National Programme

The National Green Electricity Act (GEA) on 1.1.2003 provided basically a fundamental change. From this date the legislative authority changed from the provincial to the federal level and thus most of the regional incentives by the federal states were disbanded at that time, but soon reintroduced after the shortfall of the federal incentive. The GEA governs not only the support for green electricity but also for electricity from combined heat and power generation. The GEA supplements the Austrian Electricity Law (ELWOG, 2000) which defines the basic framework for the liberalised electricity market.

The overall aim of the GEA is to increase the share of electricity from Renewables to more than 78 % in 2010, based on the obligations of the Renewable Electricity directive of the EU. For this purpose the GEA sets a target to meet 4 % (about 2,3 TWh/a) of the public national electricity demand with electricity generated from 'new' renewable energy sources (RES) (not including hydropower) as well as 9 % (about 5,2 TWh/a) by small hydropower until 2008, respectively. Those RES are supported mainly via long-term guaranteed feed-in tariffs to achieve the above mentioned political target quotas. The feed in tariffs are stated by the federal Ministry for Economics and financed by a supplementary charge on the net-price and a fixed price purchase obligation for electricity dealers (so far 4,5 Eurocent/kWh).

A revision of the GEA had been foreseen for 2005. Negotiations had been started in 2005, but a consensus between the two main parties in the national council (related to necessary changes with 2/3 majority) was hard to find (lasted until end of 2005). Final negotiations about acceptance of the revision with the EC and legal accuracy are going on and if agreed upon positively, the new GEA finally shall come into force within the first half of 2006. The current draft for the revised GEA for the first time defines a total maximum amount of additional support for new RES power plants for the years 2006 to 2011. The time frame for the feed-in-tariff is planned to be reduced. The tariffs are planned to be reduced in total (100 % of the source/size specific tariff (which are not announced yet) in year 1 to 10, 75 % in year 11,50 % in year 12), as well.

A decrement factor shall also be implemented (to reduce the source/size specific maximum tariffs each year about a few %). In addition, a definition of specific shares for energy sources is planned. In the actual draft about 30 % of the support shall be dedicated to solid biomass and waste with a high share of biomass; an additional 30 % shall be dedicated to biogas. Wind, shall be supported with 30 %, as well. The remaining 10 % are reserved for all other sources, as PV, liquid biomass, co-firing power plants or others. Although PV still plays a minor role in the revised draft, a small support seems to be possible, but will depend on the exploitation of the maximum amount by other competing sources (mainly co-firing or liquid biomass power plants). Calculating with the actual draft, a maximum support for PV amounting to about 3-4 MW would be possible to install per year. A significant market stimulation aiming at establishing competitive Austrian PV industry will not be achievable. Furthermore, no definitions for supporting special PV applications (as e.g. Building Integrated PV) niche markets, where Austrian companies could maybe reach a leading position, has been made.
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Research and development

The national programme, “Energy Systems of tomorrow,” successfully initiated by the Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology is a quite broad research programme on energy technologies. Although research is not directly related to PV, PV systems as well as distributed generation with many aspects relevant for PV are of high priority within this programme.

On a European level, the ongoing initiatives to increase the coherence of European PV RTD programming (PV-ERA-NET) are actively supported by the Austrian Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology.

Some principal descriptions of these projects highlight the general RTD trend of photovoltaics in Austria:

• Organic Solar Cells based on thin plastic films have been intensively investigated during the last 10 years, at the Kepler University of Linz, lead to the foundation of a local branch of an U.S. PV company in Linz.
• Other areas of institutional and academic research include the improvement of photovoltaic solar cells made from lower purity or multi-crystalline silicon.
• At the University of Salzburg, a new initiative was started in late 2005 to develop thin film solar cells, based on sulfosalt solar cells.
• Socio-economic research concerning the integration of PV is internationally well positioned at the Technical University of Vienna.
• Grid-interconnection, not exclusively related to PV but more to Distributed Generation from RES in general, is the main focus of several EU financed projects, which are jointly carried out by research institutions, industry and utilities.
• Cost reduction and optimization of new solutions for building integrated PV are addressed within several EU projects.
• A large Austrian glass industry has started activities in PV, mainly for addressing architectural building design.
• In the area of system technology, the activities for quality assurance, certification and testing of PV modules were initiated. For about two years, arsenal research an Austrian research and testing institution has been officially accredited to qualify crystalline silicon PV modules according to the EN/IEC 61215 standard.
• A Master of Building Science at the Danube University in Krems is dedicated to Solar-Architecture where the lectures and the scientific work are focusing more and more on PV Building integration.

Implementation and Market development

Approximately 19,2 MW of PV power had been installed in Austria by the end of 2004, numbers for 2005 can not be assured, but are expected to reach a total installation of about 22 MW. While until 2003 capacity grew continuously about 37 % each year, the growth dropped down to only 12 % in 2004 similar to the data to be expected for the 2005 survey.

The main applications for PV in Austria are grid connected distributed systems, representing more than 90 % of the total capacity. Grid-connected centralized systems in form of PV-Power plants play a minor role with about 1,2 MW installed. Building integration is an important issue and several remarkable installations were realized. Besides on-grid applications, off-grid systems are widely used to provide electricity to technical systems or for domestic use in Alpine households or mountain huts lying far away from the grid. But not exclusively in remote areas, also on urban sites PV is an increasing option to supply infrastructure systems. PV is also becoming more and more visible on Austrians highways supplying the increasing numbers of screens, which are informing the drivers with actual information about the traffic situation.

Some provincial governments have built PV-demonstration plants on municipal buildings in order to create public awareness for PV.

In Table 1 the amount of Austrian RES electricity, supported through the national feed in tariff system for 2004 and 2005 can be found (2005 values are preliminary). First real numbers for the whole year 2005 show a total amount of about 5.750 GWh for 2005, and thereof ca. 13 GWh for PV.
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Industry status

• Ertex Solar: A new subsidiary company of the traditional company Ertl Glass (known for e.g. safety glass or insulation glass production, etc.), specialises in production and distribution of building integrated PV modules. The company uses a new and innovative laminated glass production technology.
• RKG Photovoltaik, since 2004 produces PV modules. The company is closely linked to GREENoneTEC, European's market leader in solar thermal collectors.
• SED manufactures modules specially designed for integration into PV-roof tiles. The custom laminates produced are directly stuck into standard format tiles made of recycled plastic and can easily replace conventional roofing materials.
• PVT Austria, the first manufacturer of PV modules in Austria produces standard and tailored modules from imported crystalline silicon cells. The company successfully increased their output taking profit of the German PV boom.

Besides PV-Module production, various other companies are manufacturing components for modules and BOS-components like batteries, inverters, or mounting systems:

• SIEMENS AUSTRIA started large-scale manufacturing and development of string-inverters in the range of 1,5 kW to 4,6 kW for grid connected applications in 2004.
• FRONIUS INTERNATIONAL has been engaged in solar-electronics and is Europe's second largest manufacturer of inverters for grid connected PV systems.
• ISOVOLTA AG is the world market leader for flexible composite materials used for encapsulation of solar cells. The ICOSOLAR back sheet laminates are available in various colours and are used by many module manufacturers in the world.

Market development

The annual National Photovoltaic Conference 2005 was organized by arsenal research, the City of Vienna and the Austrian Photovoltaic Association with support of the Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology and was a big success, with about 150 participants.

For the first time, an “industry forum” was a part of the Conference where all relevant national market players (module producing companies, BOS producing companies, research experts etc.) informed the audience about the latest developments. The PV installers and module producers together with Architects had been preparing tools for the Architects and the building industry to integrate PV more and more as part of the building. It has been recognized that it is not only the costs, but often very practical reasons, which prevent architects from integrating PV into their building concepts, or the lack of arguments to convince the building owner to implement PV.
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Future outlook

• While waiting for the introduction and perhaps further negotiations concerning the GEA, the situation of PV is currently unclear and unsatisfactory. If no significant and stable support mechanisms, (which can provide long and promising perspective for a national PV industry development) are introduced, the market will remain limited relying on regional incentives which will only partly support the market. And even if the suggested small amount of subsidies per year, as suggested in the GEA, is not triggering potential PV niche markets, where Austrian could take a lead position, a further deviation to the strong development in other markets (especially Germany) has to be expected.

• 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 worldwide PV development progress. Specifically, the direct links to the new members of the European Union in Central and Eastern Europe in energy related items are to be mentioned (EU-Interreg Initiatives), where PV plays more and more an important role.

• The level of the public know-how about the potential and perspectives of PV is still insignificant but continuously growing. Several renewable energy education courses are already implemented, some new course offerings are currently under development. All of them include PV as an essential part of the future energy strategy. The importance of proper education for installers and planners of PV systems will increase depending on the market situation. However, the Austrian research centre “arsenal research” in coordination with the national PV association is just about to initiate a national “Certified PV Training” for installers and planners in order to keep the quality of the installed systems at a high level.

• It can be expected that the National PV Association will significantly promote the topic in Austria. The small PV industry, currently taking advantage of the strong German market is very much interested in creating a home market for PV, and is further waiting for an improvement in the economic frame conditions.

Further reading about Austria

• Austria - Country information