Austria will be able to meet half of its future methane and hydrogen requirements itself
In addition to the huge domestic biomethane potential of approx. 33 TWh - calculated by the Federal Environment Agency and BEST - Austria is also able to produce approx. 24 TWh of renewable hydrogen itself. This is the result of the ONE100 study. Thus, Austria can cover half of its future gas demand of about 105 TWh in 2040 by domestic renewable gases.
How hydrogen is produced
The results of ONE100 have shown that domestic production of around 25 TWh of renewable hydrogen is economically possible in 2040. Power-to-gas technology allows excess green electricity to be converted into hydrogen and stored long-term in pore storage, i.e. former natural gas deposits. See USS2030 project by RAG Austria AG.
Gas Connect Austria GmbH (GCA) and Austrian Power Grid AG (APG) are working on a pilot project for a power-to-gas system. The goal is to make every kWh generated from renewable sources usable. Excess green electricity that cannot be fed into the grid is converted into hydrogen and made storable. The hydrogen will then be fed into the existing Level 1 network of the (GCA). This power-to-gas system would be one of the largest demonstration systems for sector coupling in Austria.
A huge biomethane potential lies in Austria
There is a huge biomethane potential in Austria, but currently only its very small part is used. Currently, about 2 TWh of biogas are produced per year in Austria, whereas only about 0.15 TWh are actually upgraded to biomethane and fed into the gas grid. This corresponds to approx. 0.17% of the annual gas demand in Austria. From the remaining 1.86 TWh of biogas, about 0.6 TWh of green electricity was generated directly.
This situation must change quickly. According to the draft of the Renewable Gas Act, which is currently under parliamentary consideration, 7.5 TWh per year - i.e. 50 times the current production - of renewable gas is to be generated in Austria by 2030. By 2040, this figure is to rise to 15 TWh per year.
Feed in renewable gas with inGRID
Biomethane can be produced either from wet biomass through fermentation or from solid biomass through gasification. inGRID, our digital feed-in map for renewable gases, shows the ideal feed-in point into the gas grid and the highest potential for biomethane production from residual materials.
The Federal Environment Agency (Scenarios for Feasible Renewable Electricity Generation) calculated the biomethane potential from the fermentation of wet biomass for the preparation of the grid infrastructure plan and concluded that approximately 10.7 TWh of biomethane – exclusively from wet residual materials – can be produced in Austria.
BEST - Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies GmbH calculated the biomethane potential from the gasification of solid biomass for the preparation of inGRID. Based on two scenarios – with and without future electricity generation from solid biomass – BEST estimates that 11–22 TWh of biomethane – exclusively from solid residual materials – can be produced in Austria by 2040.
Biomass
Wet biomass includes residues such as manure, agricultural residues (corn straw, beet leaves, catch crops, etc.), home garden compost and green waste, as well as waste from the food industry and the organic waste garbage can.
Solid biomass includes woody residues such as firewood, forest chips, sawmill by-products, bark, black liquor, waste wood and wood imports for energy use.