Solar Energy in Austria

High export rates characterize the photovoltaic and solar thermal energy sectors.

Austria leading the Solar Thermal industry

Austria is among the European leaders in producing solar thermal power, boasting a collector area of about 1.13 million square meters. In fact, the country has an export rate of 81 percent for thermal collectors! This illustrates the level of international demand for Austrian products. New developments are also being made in the fields of plastic solar panels, heat accumulators and building integration.

Spectacular growth rate

The photovoltaic industry, which is a very research-intensive sector, has shown the highest growth rate in the field of renewable energies in Austria. Austria’s core strengths include:

·      PV cells

·      Inverters

·      Tracking systems

Austria takes a variety of creative and unconventional paths: There was going to be a nuclear power plant in Zwentendorf. However, it was never put into operation due to a national referendum. Now, the facility is one of Austria’s largest PV facilities as well as a research center.

Innovations from Austria

Bionic absorbers

The development of Sun Master, a Chinese solar panel, was inspired by Austria. It has now formed a new generation of solar collectors. The transfer of heat takes place directly on the absorber plate through canals, which then branch out like the leaf of a tree. This leads to the optimal heat transmission and a higher output.

SolarCampus

SolarCampus is the photovoltaic research power plant in Upper Austria. It features a solar collector area of about 8,000 m². This can be compared to the size of two football fields. It is Austria's largest solar power plant and has been generating around 1,100 megawatt hours of green electricity per year since May 2010.

Sources and References

https://investinaustria.at/en/downloads/brochures/environmental-technologies-2015.pdf