Site tour of the Austrian pilots

Partners from Universtiy of Stavanger and Eutropian visited the two Austrian pilots in the mountainous, forested region of Styria in southern Austria, known for its wine, spas and castles, and now, also a booming network of energy communities. Austria is a trailblazer when it comes to the energy transition. The national climate targets envisage converting Austria’s electricity supply to be 100% from renewable energy sources (national balance) by 2030, and to achieve climate neutrality by 2040. Energy communities are an important part of this strategy, and represent a new milestone for the Austrian energy industry. They enable proactive participation in the energy transition, promoting the expansion of decentralised energy systems, offering economic incentives and strengthening regional value chains.

Professor Siddharth Sareen and Yonas Tesema Amaya from the University of Stavanger, Norway, Stefan Geier from the BOKU University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, and Eutropian team members Sophie Bod and Giovanni Pagano, spent a couple of days getting to know the ENERGY4ALL two pilots. We had a fantastic host in Heribert Strasser from So-strom, a company that services both pilots. So -strom is also a project partner, supporting communities from their set up, throughout their everyday operations with technical and financial expertise.

St. Margarethen-Lebring is a village with 2300 inhabitants. The energy community was founded at the end of 2023, and photovoltaic energy sharing began in early 2024. Currently there are 60 households, with a strong upward trend. We met Stefan Sturm, the chairman and founder of the Energy Community at the townhall who explained that the aim is to have 100% of the inhabitants becoming members of the energy community. It will be exciting to witness the process of scaling up this energy community within the ENERGY4ALL project.

On our second day we met Robert Tulnik, mayor of Fernitz-Mellach municipality, and chairman of the Energy Community Graz Umgebung Süd. The GU-Süd is a municipal association consisting of six municipalities: Fernitz-Mellach, Gössendorf, Hart bei Graz, Hausmannstätten, Raaba-Grambach, and Vasoldsberg. They have been working together for 20 years in the areas of public transport and business, now they want to take advantage of the opportunities offered by energy communities and strengthen regional energy independence, with the aim of also being able to alleviate energy poverty through producing their own energy. The six municipalities together represent almost 30,000 inhabitants, and a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises. The pilot is in its initial phase, with a number of municipal buildings already producing electricity through solar panels.

Styria is truly a renewable energy pioneer! Heimo Ecker-Eckhofen, the brain behind potentially the world’s largest  heat storage facility using renwable energy showed us around the quarry which is planned to be the site of the Sonnenspeicher Süd project. The quarry will be flooded with water from the nearby Kainach river and converted into a massive heat storage facility using solar thermal collectors. The Sonnenspeicher Süd will supply up to 30% of Graz’s district heating with environmentally friendly, clean energy. This will save 100,000 tons of CO2 annually. In order for the heated water to get to Graz, a four kilometer long pipeline will be built feeding into the existing district heating network connecting to Graz. This project is truly on a pioneering scale and we are grateful for the opportunity to see this massive energy project in the making.