Austria celebrates progress: Renewable energies on record course!

Austria celebrates progress: Renewable energies on record course!

Österreich, Österreich - Austria reached the "Deacy of Coal, Oil and Natural Gas" on June 1, 2025. This means that this year the country's energy transition exceeds an important point. According to Econews come 41 % of the entire energy needs from renewable sources, including water, sun, sun and biomass. Nevertheless, 59 % of the energy requirement continues to come from fossil fuels, with 35 % consisting of oil products solely.

From May 30, 2025, Austria will also rely on imported fossil fuels, a sign of the challenges that the country must master on the way to climate neutrality. A positive aspect is that Austria became net current exporter again in 2024, mainly due to the high hydropower production.

renewable energies in different sectors

The shares of renewable energies in the various sectors show both progress and challenges. In the electricity sector, the proportion is already over 88 %, with hydropower, wind, solar energy and bioenergy playing the main roles. In the heat sector, however, the proportion is only around 40 %, with progress promoting mainly by using biomass and an increasing importance of heat pumps. With a share of only 13 %, the traffic sector shows a strongly fossil dominance, although the new registrations of electric vehicles increase, which shows that the change in this area is slowly but steadily.

statistics from 2024 show that around 220,000 purely electrically operated cars were traveling in Austria, which corresponds to 4.2 % of the total car stock. This illustrates the potential for a future -oriented transport system that rely more on renewable energies.

implementation of the climate goals and future challenges

The “Our Energy World 2040” project designs a future energy system that covers 97 % of energy supply from renewable sources. However, a doubling of the electricity requirement is forecast by 2040, which is to be covered by hydropower, wind power, photovoltaics and thermal systems. Investments in storage technologies, network expansion and system flexibility are essential for ensuring security of supply.

A look at the neighboring countries shows that progress in renewable energies is also observed in Germany. In 2024, 22.4 % of the gross intention consumption were covered by renewable sources, which is an increase in comparison to the previous year. Forecasts indicate that 41 % of gross energy consumption should be covered from renewable energies by 2030, whereby wind energy, biomass and photovoltaics are the leading energy sources, such as the Federal Environment Agency illustrated.