Overview

Oesterreichs Energie sees the European Commission’s Green Deal as the core package of measures designed to meet climate targets at the European level. It is now essential that the European Union creates a framework to achieve its goal of a climate-neutral economy by 2050, and companies quickly begin to implement the related measures. In many respects, the Clean Energy Package has already set out the basic principles for the electricity sector.

With regard to the proposed revision of the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR), Oesterreichs Energie welcomes the fact that the sectors covered by the ETS are not solely obliged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This would place an uneven and disproportionate (additional) burden on these sectors.

As part of the European Green Deal, the EU has adopted the European Climate Law, which includes a binding commitment for the Union to become climate-neutral by 2050. It has set a highly ambitious interim goal on the road towards achieving climate neutrality by targeting a reduction of at least 55% in CO2 emissions by 2030.

Oesterreichs Energie welcomes the increase in the target share of renewables in final energy consumption in 2030 from 32% to 40%. Integration of the energy system is central to achievement of the EU’s climate protection targets.

100 percent electricity from renewable energy in Austria by 2030 and climate neutrality for the country by 2040 are both important and ambitious goals. The electricity industry is ready to take up these challenges. However, it is also important to create the right framework conditions for the energy transition. Because time is running out!

The European Commission’s “Fit for 55” legislation package also includes proposals for amendments to the Directive on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure, which will now take the form of a regulation.

The Austrian electricity sector is committed to meeting the national energy and climate target of generating all electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and achieving climate neutrality by 2040. The Green Deal is designed to bring about EU-wide climate neutrality by 2050. As part of the roadmap for this objective, the target reduction in CO2 has been adjusted to 55% by 2030.

Oesterreichs Energie fully supports the European Green Deal and its initiatives and stresses the importance to tackle the twin challenge of biodiversity and climate change.

Austria’s energy and climate policies include some ambitious targets. This will require an increase of 27 TWh in annual renewable energy (RES) output by 2030, of which 11 TWh will be accounted for by photovoltaic, 10 TWh by wind, 5 TWh by hydro and 1 TWh by biomass.

Oesterreichs Energie welcomes the general increase in the CO2 savings target in the EU ETS sector, as well as the proposal to achieve this target by raising the linear reduction factor (LRF) from 2.2% to 4.2%.