Welcome to our page with data for Austria

ELECTRICITY GENERATION

Installed geothermal generating capacity (December 2009) in MW

Altheim	0.50
Simbach/Braunau	0.20
Blumau	0.18
Total	0.88

In the country three small binary plants are installed: Altheim, Bad Blumau and the cross-border project of Simbach/Braunau, commissioned in 2009.

In Altheim a 106°C fluid is utilized both for district heating and for electricity production using a binary plant. The net output is 500 kW, after accounting for the 350 kW for submersible pump parasitic load.

The Bad Blumau project with 110°C fluid is exploited for heating a Spa facility and a binary plant of 180 kW net output.

At Simbach/Braunau an important district heating project has been realized, with about 40 MWth of geothermal heat and a small binary unit of 200 kW.

The obstacles and barriers to the geothermal development in this country are quite severe and important, and it is expected only a moderate increase up to 6 MW for the year 2015.

Taken from Ruggero Bertani’s paper, " Geothermal Power Generation in the World 2005–2010 Update Report ", published in Proceedings of the World Geothermal Congress 2010, Bali, Indonesia, 25-29 April 2010.

DIRECT USES

Total thermal installed capacity in MWt:	662.85
Direct use in TJ/year	3,727.7
Direct use in GWh/year	1,035.6
Capacity factor	0.18

Only seven deep boreholes were drilled in the country over the past year, all of which were used to supply heat for balneological purposes. No other geothermal projects were undertaken in Austria since 2005 due to lack of public support and low feed-in terriffs for electric power (7.3 cents/kWh).

However, the number of ground source heat pumps has shown a steady increase with the estimated number of units at 50,000 having a capacity of 600 MWt and producing 800 GWh/yr. As in most countries the data on geothermal heat pumps are hard to obtain as only groundwater wells are documented with the authorities. Future projects are expected in the Vienna basin near the capital and in the Austrian Molasse Basin. Geothermal heat pumps are expected to increase with more than 50% of the new family houses to have units installed.

The various direct-uses include:

district heating (50.03 MWt and 602.4 TJ/yr);
greenhouse heating (1.80 MWt and 29.0 TJ/yr);
industrial process heat (2.15 MWt and 31.3 TJ/yr);
bathing and swimming (8.87 MWt and 185.0 TJ/yr);
geothermal heat pumps (600.0 MWt and 2,880 TJ/yr)

for a total of 662.85 MWt and 3,727.70 TJ/yr.

Taken from the paper by John W. Lund, Derek H. Freeston, and Tonya L. Boyd: "Direct Utilization of Geothermal Energy 2010 Worldwide Review"; published in Proceedings of the World Geothermal Congress 2010, Bali, Indonesia, 25-29 April 2010

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