Heading towards democratic and sustainable electricity systems – the example of Austria

In recent years rising quantities of electricity generated from new variable renewable energy sources (VRES) have influenced the structure of electricity markets in many countries. The major aim of this work is to investigate the conditions required to head towards a sustainable and more democratic electricity supply system by using even higher amounts of VRES for the example of Austria. The most important result of this investigation is that an approach based on market principles – including flexibility and the final customers – is favourable and will ensure that competition at the service level rather than capacity payments will be the basis for future market designs of the electricity system. The transformation towards a sustainable and more democratic as well as increasingly competitive future electricity supply system is likely to be based on different paradigms of “new thinking”. This means that the fundamental structures of the overall electricity system will change. It will be based on changing from the old inflexible one-way electricity delivery system to a very flexible one with a two or multi-way flow of electricity. Regarding the case study of the Austrian electricity system the major finding is that up to 2030 RES can contribute to electricity generation to the same extent as electricity demand is expected to be. This implies a growth to about 16 TWh Wind (in 2020: 7 TWh) and 12 TWh PV (in 2020: 1 TWh). However, to meet demand on an hourly base over the whole year even after having implemented additional storage capacities and several flexibility measures on the demand-side an amount of about 2 TWh electricity (compared to 10 TWh in 2019) has to be generated from different gas-based power plants (e.g. natural or biomass-based gases)