- Target: 100% renewable electricity
- Status: Achieved
- RES: Hydroelectric power, wind energy, biomass and solar.
- Implementation: Niederösterreich, or Lower Austria, is located in north-east Austria, and shares its borders with Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The state is Austria’s most populous. The 100% renewable electricity target was accomplished in November 2015 but is seen as but one step in an ongoing process by the state government. Renewable energy development is continuing as plans are in place to decommission the remaining coal fired power plant in the state by 2020. Further to this, the state is planning to generate 50% of all the state’s total energy demand via renewable sources by 2030. This includes increasing the production of bio-fuels for transportation and heating/cooling needs. At present, 100% renewable electric production in the state comes from a blend of generation technologies. It gets 63% of its electricity from hydroelectric power, 26% from wind energy, nine percent from biomass and two percent from solar. A pilot project took place studying the possibility for a wind to hydrogen storage system. Lower Austria’s renewable energy success has created growth in employment in renewable energy fields (38,000 jobs) and the development of small and medium locally owned businesses. By 2030, the number of jobs is expected increase to 12,000 jobs.
- Population: 1,653,419 (2016)
- Area: 19,186 km2(7,408 sq mi)
