Austria produces 90% of its power in May from renewables

The share of electricity from renewable sources in Austria rose to about 90% in May and temporarily reached 100% during one of the weeks, leading to a sharp decrease in the need for power imports.

Renewables covered about 3,980 GWh of the country's total electricity consumption of 4,445 GWh in May thanks to the warmer weather and strong hydropower generation, Austrian Power Grid (APG) said on Friday.

The run-of-river power plants across the country generated 2,929 GWh during the month under review, up 34% from April.

According to APG's technology executive Gerhard Christiner, the higher share of renewables is a seasonal effect typical for the spring and the summer.

Thanks to the robust hydropower generation, Austria needed only 24 GWh of imported electricity in May compared with 477 GWh in April. This corresponds to a 95% decline in monthly terms.

The data shows that the lack of transmission capacity caused bottlenecks and the redispach work had to be performed on 103 days in the first five months of 2022 to ensure power supply in the country. The redispatch measures cost about EUR 27 million (USD 28.54m) by the end of May.

(EUR 1 = USD 1.057)

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