Alarm in the power grid: Lower Austria will soon need 7,500 megawatts!

Alarm in the power grid: Lower Austria will soon need 7,500 megawatts!

The power grid in eastern Austria is facing an enormous challenge. How oe24 reported, there are signs of drastic increases in performance requirements due to planned large-scale projects. In Netz Niederösterreich's supply area, requests have increased to around 7,500 megawatts (MW). This corresponds to almost five times the current peak load, which is around 1,600 MW.

Werner Hengst, Managing Director of Netz NÖ, commented on this at an energy policy background discussion at the Security of Supply Forum. In particular, the increasing requests for large battery storage and data centers play a crucial role in this development. Hengst emphasized that the impact on the network and the associated fees depend heavily on the organization of the expansion, especially with regard to the planned electricity storage facilities.

Growing demands and concerns

The spokeswoman for the Security of Supply Forum, Brigitte Ederer, called for incentives and a coordinated approach to overcome these challenges. While the estimated storage requirement in Austria is 1,400 MW by 2030, requests in Lower Austria add up to an impressive 5,750 MW. This raises questions, particularly regarding the necessity of all planned storage projects, which Hengst questions.

The planned data centers also bring with them evidence of excessive capacity and increased costs. Estimates show an additional requirement of around 500 MW, while Netz Lower Austria has already requested around 1,760 MW. This could have significant implications for future energy supplies.

Insight into the details of the requests

On average, each individual request requires around 200 MW of additional power. For comparison: This corresponds to three to four times the output of a city like Krems, which requires around 50 MW. A key question that arises when power demand increases is the energy source for the required power, although this is not the responsibility of the network operator.

The situation requires a thorough analysis and possibly adjustments to the network organization in order to be able to sustainably serve the increasing demand from large projects. The challenges arising from this expansive development in the energy sector will take on both economic and infrastructural dimensions.

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The discussion about the upcoming challenges in Lower Austria's power grid underlines the need to develop innovative solutions to meet the requirements of an increasingly digitalized world. The new projects in the energy sector are therefore the focus of public and political attention.