The industry association Photovoltaic Austria assumes an internal forecast of around 1,200 megawatts. More than 1,000 megawatts peak, i.e. one gigawatt, are considered fixed, as PV Austria said on the APA. The Technology Platform Photovoltaics (TPPV) is also assuming an increase of 1.0 to 1.2 gigawatt peak (GWp). The market analysis company Brancheradar recently estimated the capacity newly installed in 2022 at 1.37 GWp.
“We are seeing a dynamic in the photovoltaic market that is extraordinary at the moment. As in the previous year, this applies to both residential and open space areas. This development comes very close to the figures we need to achieve our national goals,” said TPPV boss Hubert Fechner in the industry portal “pv magazine”.
His tip for 2022 is “significantly more than one gigawatt, maybe 1.1 gigawatts, 1.2 gigawatts or more”. Final figures for 2022 will be published by the Climate Ministry in mid-2023 and by Statistics Austria at the end of 2023.
Boom started even before Ukraine invasion
The boom had already started before the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the energy crisis. As early as 2021, the newly installed output doubled compared to 2020 to 740 megawatts peak. The high electricity prices have given the PV expansion in 2022 an additional boost.
The boom is likely to continue in 2023, as many homeowners who have opted for a PV system will only get it this year. Fechner predicts that Austria will install between 1.2 and 1.5 gigawatts each year between 2023 and 2030.
Rapid expansion of the power grids required
Representatives of the PV industry are pushing for a rapid expansion of the power grid. In some areas, the grid operators would refuse to feed in new PV systems because the transformer station is at its capacity limit and cannot transport the electricity away.
The high prices have also led to the fact that many have planned the systems as large as possible and mounted panels on garden sheds and the like in addition to the house roof. Sometimes even vertically mounted panels can be seen on house facades. These produce good yields, especially when the sun is low in the sky.
Funding in high demand
The fact that the demand for photovoltaic systems and electricity storage is still at a record level is also shown by the rush at the funding agencies. In mid-October, the state funding agency OeMAG received more than 23,600 applications in the first five minutes of the fourth round of funding in 2022. After 60 minutes there were around 38,600 tickets, according to OeMAG – more on this at oesterreich.ORF.at.
IPCC: Important technologies for the energy transition
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), photovoltaics and wind energy are the two most important technologies to stop global warming caused by burning fossil fuels.
