Austria

Key facts

Austria exported 8.2% of its electricity production in 2024 [1]

Austria produces 74 953 GWh yearly [2]

Austria is 21% electrified

 

The industry electricity to gas price ratio is 2.8 and the households price ratio is 2.5. [3]

The Austrian electricity mix is split between
  • Hydropower
  • Wind
  • Solar PV
  • Natural Gas
  • Biofuels
  • Coal
  • Other

Current state of electrification

Residential buildings in Austria

Buildings

  • Residential buildings account for 35% of Austria’s electricity consumption, commercial and public services represent 18.3% [4]
  • Austria has around 537,000 installed heat pump systems. [5]

Industry

Overall industry is approximately 30% electrified [6]

 

The most electricity intensive sectors are:

  • Food and beverage: 2 TWh – 8.5 % of the industrial electricity consumption
  • Chemicals: 4.3 TWh – 18.2 % of the industrial electricity consumption
  • Machinery: 3.5 TWh – 14.8 % of the industrial electricity consumption
  • Iron & steel: 2.4 TWh – 10.2 % of the industrial electricity consumption
Industry — from the design
Transport — from the design

Transport

Transport represents 6% of the Austrian electricity consumption [7]

All data for the total number of vehicles come from Statistics Austria for the year 2025 [8]

The electric fleet is composed of  [9]

  • 273 815 cars (+31 067 year on year) – representing 5.2% of the 5.286.101 passenger cars on Austrian roads.
  • 18 544 light commercial vehicles (+1831 year on year)– representing 3.52% of the 526.783 light commercial vehicles on Austrian roads.
  • 597 trucks (+89 year on year) – representing 0.1% of the 581.000 trucks on Austrian roads
  • 23 352 light vehicles (+743 year on year) – representing 2.38% of the 983 000 light vehicles on Austrian roads
  • 665 buses (+75 year on year) – representing 6.07% of the 10.963 buses on Austrian roads

Grid and flexibility

Transmission & Distribution

Austria has a very rapid decarbonisation timeline, aiming for 100% renewable electricity by 2030 and full climate neutrality by 2040. [10] Anchored by a massive, historical hydropower fleet that already supplies roughly 60% of its generation, the country has accelerated onshore wind and solar PV deployment, backed by over €200 million in EU-approved clean technology manufacturing support. However, this rapid influx of volatile renewables has exposed a severe geographic imbalance: western Austria hosts the bulk of the nation’s pumped hydro storage, while the flatter east holds the highest solar PV potential and drives the majority of industrial demand.
Lacking sufficient transmission corridors to bridge this divide, the Austrian Power Grid (APG) is facing structural grid congestion, resulting in soaring redispatch costs that reached approximately €142 million to stabilise the network. This bottleneck has led to connection delays, renewable curtailment, and the threat of rejected connection requests for new industrial loads. [10] [11] [12] [13]
To prevent grid bottlenecks, Austria is implementing market reforms to unlock demand-side flexibility and battery energy storage systems (BESS). The Electricity Market Act (ElWG) adopted in December 2025 to overhaul the country’s electricity market design formally legalises “flexible grid access”. This allows new renewable and commercial projects to secure immediate “partial connections” with agreed-upon curtailment rules, bypassing long waiting queues for physical grid expansion. [14]

Storage

The country holds 3.5-5.5 GW of installed pumped hydro storage capacity across its Alpine reservoir plants. [15]
To complement hydro capacity and absorb increasing solar and wind generation, Austria’s cumulative battery energy storage systems (BESS) reached over 6.7 GWh, driven largely by residential and commercial solar-coupled batteries alongside a growing pipeline of utility-scale battery storage installations. [16] [17]

Smart meters

Austria has 6.53 million smart electricity meters installed out of approximately 6.74 million total metering points, this represents a 96.9% rollout rate. [18]

Support schemes

Electric Vehicles (EVs)
E-Mobilitätsbonus (Direct Grant) [19]

Federal purchase subsidy for newly registered battery-electric cars (BEVs) priced up to €60,000.

  • Private cars: €3,000 standard grant.
  • Private wallboxes/charging: €600 grant.
No VAT (0% tax rate) [20]

100% VAT exemption on the purchase and leasing of fully electric cars for businesses priced up to €40,000

No Registration Tax (No NoVA) [21]

Full exemption from the standard Normverbrauchsabgabe (NoVA) – Austria’s heavy luxury consumption tax which hits high-emission ICE vehicles up to 80% of the car’s net value.

Company Car Tax Exemption [22]

Zero annual engine-related vehicle tax (motorbezogene Versicherungssteuer), combined with complete Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) tax relief for employees using a company EV for personal travel.

Heat Pumps
Kesseltausch 2026 (Direct Grant) [23]

A federal flat-rate base subsidy of €7,500 for replacing an old oil, gas, coal, or electric storage heater with an efficient air-to-water or geothermal heat pump.

Out-of-Gas / Eco-Bonuses [24]

An additional €2,000 “Out-of-Gas” bonus if switching specifically off a grid gas boiler, plus an extra €1,500 if paired with solar thermal infrastructure. (Total base caps at 30% of total project cost).

Sauber Heizen für Alle (Low-Income Scheme) [25]

Comprehensive subsidy tier covering up to 100% of the entire hardware and installation costs (capped at €37,550) for low-income single or multi-person homes.

Provincial Top-Ups [26]

Individual Austrian states offer localised add-on grants that stack directly on top of the federal €7,500 base (e.g., Tyrol adds up to an extra €8,325).

Industry
Decarbonisation of Industry Fund [27]

Focused capital deployment via the national Klima- und Energiefonds to finance structural factory conversions (such as high-temperature process heat pumps and industrial waste heat recovery).

Energy Tax Rebate (Energieabgabenvergütung) [28]

Structured corporate tax refunds on electricity and utility usage for manufacturing enterprises to cushion high electro-intensity running costs.

Targets

Austria targets to be completely climate neutral by 2040 and has adopted some dedicated measures for its industry and transport sectors.

Buildings

  • Austria does not have a strict target for heating in building, they simply follow the EPBD guidance and have embedded in law the objectives to phase out fossil oil and coal heating, as well as create a pathway to fossil free heating sector

Industry

  • Austria targets climate neutrality by 2040, with industries representing a big sector that needs to take some measures to reach this objective. Austria adopted in February 2026 an Industrial Strategy for 2035, which highlights some measures for industries to decarbonise, and electrification is highlighted as one of the priorities to reach this. For example, one of the key measures proposed by the strategy is to introduce an industrial electricity price: starting 2027 for up to 50% of consumption, companies are to receive electricity at prices up to 5 cents per kWh lower. This will be complemented by halving the electricity charges. [29]

Transport

  • No dedicated target but Austria developed a dedicated climate neutral mobility plan under their 2030 Mobility Master Plan. [30]

Gaps and Challenges

Austria benefits from a highly renewable electricity system and relatively high levels of electrification in buildings and industry. However, several challenges remain.

  • Transport electrification remains comparatively low, particularly for freight and heavy-duty vehicles.
  • Electricity demand will need to grow significantly to support industrial decarbonisation, heat pumps and electric mobility.
  • Grid expansion must accelerate to integrate new renewable generation and electrified end uses.
  • Industrial electrification remains challenging for energy-intensive sectors such as steel, chemicals and cement.
  • Heat pump deployment needs to accelerate to replace remaining fossil-fuel heating systems.
  • Long permitting procedures continue to delay renewable energy and grid projects.

Assessment

Buildings

Lacking

Relatively high electrification levels and supportive policies for phasing out fossil heating, but heat pump deployment still needs to accelerate. However, the sudden scaling back of various federal building renovation subsidies due to budget constraints has created investment uncertainty. Combined with low supplier-switching rates among consumers, inertia remains high.

Transport

Lacking

EV uptake is growing but overall transport electrification remains low, particularly in freight and heavy-duty transport

Industry

On track

Strong political focus on industrial competitiveness and electrification, but major challenges remain for energy-intensive sectors.

Power system

On track

Hydropower is Austria’s backbone, but extreme weather has exposed severe flaws. For example, a historically dry period caused an immediate 24.8% drop in hydro output, forcing Austria back into a major net-electricity importer position. Wind and solar cannot scale fast enough without massive energy storage backup, making the power system structurally vulnerable despite its clean status.

Grids

Lacking

Significant investments are planned, but grid expansion and permitting must accelerate to accommodate electrification and renewable integration

Policy framework

Lacking

Austria has ambitious targets (2040 neutrality) but lacks the delivery mechanisms. The country has long delayed passing an overarching, legally binding Climate Protection Law, meaning there are no statutory penalty mechanisms or unified federal-provincial governance structures to enforce sectoral targets if states fail to cooperate on wind/grid expansion.

  1. 1IEA, “Country profile, Austria”, accessible here.
  2. 2IEA, “Country profile, Austria”, accessible here.
  3. 3European Commission, “Electrification Action plan”, accessible here.
  4. 4IEA, “Country profile, Austria”, accessible here.
  5. 5JRC, “Austria: status of the heat pump market”, accessible here. EHPA, 2025 European heat pump market report”, accessible here.
  6. 6 WKO, “Das Dashboard energie-Zukunft”, accessible here
  7. 7European Commission, “European Alternative Fuels Observatory: Austria”, accessible here.
  8. 8Statistics Austria, “Energy balances”, accessible here.- calculated from national energy balance
  9. 9European Commission, “European Alternative Fuels Observatory: Austria”, accessible here.
  10. 10IEA, “Austria 2026, Executive summary”, accessible here.
  11. 11IEA, “Austria 2026, Executive summary”, accessible here.
  12. 12Enlit, “Austria may require more than 68bn in grid investments by 2040”, accessible here
  13. 13APG, “Network development plan 2025”, accessible here.
  14. 14CMS law, “EIWG Law analysis”, accessible here.
  15. 15Andritz, “Austria - At the Heart of Europe”, accessible here
  16. 16Sustainable solutions Europe, “Solar solutions - wien”, accessible here
  17. 17Energy Optimizer, “Battery storage for grid stability in Austria 2026: how large-scale storage enables the energy transition”, accessible here
  18. 18VOL.AT, “Smart meter roll-out practically completed”, accessible here.
  19. 19ÖAMTC, "Förderungen von E-Fahrzeugen für Privatpersonen in Österreich", accessible here
  20. 20EY Austria, "Steuerliche Vorteile von Elektroautos in Betrieben", accessible here.
  21. 21Bundesministerium für Finanzen, "Normverbrauchsabgabe (NoVA) Befreiungen", accessible here
  22. 22WKO, "Motorbezogene Versicherungssteuer und Sachbezug für Elektrofahrzeuge", accessible here.
  23. 23Sanierungsoffensive, "FAQ Kesseltausch Ein- und Zweifamilienhaus", accessible here.
  24. 24Umweltförderung, "Kesseltausch und Sanierungsscheck im mehrgeschossigen Wohnbau", accessible here.
  25. 25Transparenzportal Bund, "Sauber Heizen für Alle – Leistungsbeschreibung", accessible here.
  26. 26Lambda Heat Pumps, "Planning to Install a Heat Pump in 2026? here Are the Incentives Available in Austria", accessible here.
  27. 27Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft, Energie und Tourismus, "Transformation der Industrie – Programmrichtlinien", accessible here.
  28. 28Unternehmensservice Portal, "Energieabgabenvergütung für Produktionsbetriebe", accessible here.
  29. 29Federal Ministry Innovation, Mobility and infrastructure Republic of Austria, “Austria’s industrial Strategy 2035: producing the future together”, accessible here.
  30. 30Federal Ministry Innovation, Mobility and infrastructure Republic of Austria, “Austria’s 2030 Mobility Master Plan”, accessible here.