Austria in the energy crisis: fossil fuels dominate!

Austria in the energy crisis: fossil fuels dominate!

Österreich, Land - Austria exhausted his arithmetical supply with renewable energies on May 29, 2025. Since May 30, 2025, the country has now rely on fossil fuels for the remaining annual needs that have to be imported almost completely. This dependence on fossil energy sources is mitigated only to a limited extent due to the ongoing progress in the area of ​​renewable energies, emphasizes Franz Angerer, Managing Director of the Austrian Energy Agency. Austria currently covers 41 percent of its energy requirements from renewable sources, which include hydropower, wind energy, solar energy and biomass.

The fossil fuels, on the other hand, make up 59 percent of the energy requirement. There are 35 percent of oil products that represent the largest proportion. In the electricity sector, however, Austria is enjoying a positive development: In 2024, the country exported more electricity for the first time since 2000 than it imported. This improvement is due to cheap water management and the advancing expansion of renewable energy sources.

growth of renewable energies

Among renewable energies, photovoltaics shows the strongest growth. In 2020, 341 MW of new photovoltaic systems were installed, while in 2023 and 2024 over 2,200 MW were added. The entire installed photovoltaic performance is now almost 9,000 MWP. In the electricity sector, 88 percent of energy now comes from renewable sources, especially hydropower, wind and solar energy as well as bioenergy.

In the heat sector, the proportion of renewable energies is around 40 percent. This is mainly achieved by biomass and an increasing number of heat pumps. In the traffic sector, the proportion of renewable energies is the lowest of around 13 percent, with biofuels and electromobility being the main actors. According to the Environmental Federal Agency , the most important renewable energy sources in Austria are hydropower and wind power. The latter contributes almost 10 percent to the power supply, while hydropower covers more than half of the electricity requirement.

A look at the generation of electricity

The natural gas content for electricity production remains constant and is important for network stability, whereby hard coal is only used in industrial generation plants. In addition, electricity imports have decreased in recent years, from 12 percent in 2018 to 3 percent in 2020, which indicates the increasing independence of fossil fuels. Nevertheless, the electricity market prices rose significantly after the separation of the German-Austrian price zone at the end of 2018, which led to an increase in prices to three times between summer 2021 and February 2022

The situation around the energy costs has caused the government to introduce measures to relieve budget, commercial and industrial customers. This includes suspending the ecostrom flat rate, setting the funding contribution to zero and reducing the electricity and natural gas tax. Further information on the energy supply and current developments can be found on the website of Eurostat .