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Published on: March 19, 2026 / Updated on: March 19, 2026 – Author: Konrad Wolfenstein
Solar parks and open-field installations in Austria and the great solar dilemma: Why roofs are not enough for Austria's electricity future – Creative image: Xpert.Digital
Burgenland's electricity miracle: How one federal state is showing the rest of Austria how the energy transition works
Austria is experiencing an unprecedented photovoltaic boom, but appearances are deceiving: While rooftop systems are being built at record speed, the crucial expansion of large-scale ground-mounted systems is lagging significantly behind. Without solar parks on meadows and fields, the ambitious goal of climate neutrality by 2040 is, purely mathematically speaking, unattainable. The urgent need for land is currently hampered by a patchwork of regulations across the federal states, chronically overloaded electricity grids, and societal resistance. This comprehensive analysis sheds light on why the energy transition will fail without open spaces, how Burgenland is acting as a national pioneer, and why innovative concepts like agrivoltaics – coupled with new legislation – could be the key to acceptance and a final breakthrough.
From niche product to system technology: The historical development of photovoltaics in Austria
Just two decades ago, photovoltaics was a niche technology in Austria, limited to isolated demonstration projects and enthusiastic pioneers. The structural peculiarity of the Austrian electricity mix – dominated by hydropower, which traditionally accounts for more than half of national generation – long left little room for solar energy. With accession to the European Union and the gradual liberalization of energy markets, the regulatory framework changed, but political prioritization remained moderate for the time being.
The real paradigm shift occurred from 2021 onwards, when the Renewable Energy Expansion Act (EAG) came into force, establishing binding quantitative targets for photovoltaic expansion for the first time. With the goal of achieving a net-zero renewable energy supply by 2030, the law set a political milestone that has fundamentally transformed the market. Since then, installed PV capacity has been growing at a pace that exceeds even optimistic scenarios. 2023 marked a historic high with a record 2.6 gigawatts of peak capacity, with almost 129,000 new systems installed in that single year alone. The cumulative installed capacity thus amounted to 6,394 megawatts at the end of 2023.
Developments in subsequent years confirmed this trend. In 2024, 2,130 megawatts of new PV capacity were installed, bringing Austria's total installed capacity to approximately 9,400 megawatts peak. By the end of 2025, the installed PV capacity had already reached about 9.8 gigawatts. Within just a few years, Austria had thus transformed itself from a laggard to one of the most dynamic solar markets in Europe.
What particularly characterizes this development is the existing structural imbalance: the vast majority of the expansion took place on rooftops. Of the 2.6 gigawatts newly installed in 2023, only 308 megawatts were attributable to ground-mounted systems – that corresponds to only about twelve percent of the new installations. This finding is not trivial; it is central to understanding the challenges of the future.
The real energy policy crises stem from a simple calculation that is increasingly coming to the fore. To achieve climate neutrality by 2040, Austria needs an annual photovoltaic production of 41 terawatt-hours. This figure was stipulated in the Austrian Grid Infrastructure Plan (NIP) and corresponds to an installed module capacity of at least 45 to 50 gigawatts. The National Energy and Climate Plan (NEKP) already projects a demand of 21 terawatt-hours per year for 2030.
The Austrian Energy Association (Oesterreichs Energie) has systematically surveyed the technically and economically viable areas for photovoltaic (PV) expansion in a recent study. The result is soberingly precise: Systems with an annual production of around 16 terawatt-hours could be installed on all types of buildings – residential, commercial, and agricultural buildings – whereas rooftop systems currently only generate six terawatt-hours. In addition, parking lots and landfills offer a potential of another 2.8 terawatt-hours. Even if this entire rooftop and infrastructure potential were fully utilized, less than twenty terawatt-hours could be achieved – barely half of what will be needed by 2040.
The second half can only be generated on open land. Photovoltaic Austria estimates that a total area of 70 to 80 square kilometers is needed to achieve the 5.7 terawatt-hours of open-field solar power required by 2030 – this corresponds to 0.25 to 0.3 percent of Austria's land area. To put this into perspective: Achieving the overall 2040 target would require several times this amount. While this area sounds modest, it is anything but uncontroversial politically.
It is important to consider the difference between the legally enshrined EAG targets and the more ambitious planning objectives when making this calculation. The EAG itself envisages an expansion of PV capacity of eleven terawatt-hours by 2030 – a figure now considered too low by planners. According to the Kontext Institute, the current draft of the Renewable Energy Expansion Acceleration Act (EABG) even falls short of the already established EAG targets, thus missing an important opportunity for greater commitment.
Austria's federal structure, considered a strength in many areas of public life, proves to be a significant structural weakness when it comes to the expansion of ground-mounted solar power plants. The nine federal states have 36 different laws that can apply to the construction of photovoltaic systems – from building codes and nature conservation laws to electricity regulations. What is completely permit-free in Salzburg can become subject to notification in Tyrol starting at 50 kilowatts and requires a permit starting at 250 kilowatts. A PV system in Lower Austria is exempt from building permit requirements, while identical systems located 100 meters above the state border in Burgenland require a permit from the mayor starting at 20 kilowatts.
The findings are particularly serious regarding energy spatial planning, which is responsible for designating areas for solar parks. So far, only four federal states – Burgenland, Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg – have even addressed the task of designating areas for solar power production. In five other federal states, no energy spatial planning exists that specifically targets the provision of open-space potential. Furthermore, Carinthia has a strict area limit of four hectares for photovoltaic systems, which effectively precludes the construction of large-scale open-space installations.
Photovoltaic Austria responded to this regulatory chaos by publishing a 100-page permitting guide summarizing the most important state laws. The guide illustrates the absurdity of the situation: an investor wanting to operate in several federal states has to navigate completely different legal systems, and even professional project developers are reaching their capacity limits. The long-awaited Renewable Energy Expansion Acceleration Act (EABG) was intended to remedy this, but it has been repeatedly blocked, most recently by the representatives of the federal states in the National Council.
Alongside regulatory fragmentation, a second, technically driven structural problem is emerging, the extent of which is often underestimated: the electricity grid. The dramatic expansion of photovoltaics in recent years has pushed distribution networks in many regions of Austria to their capacity limits. Many project developers face the problem of not being able to secure grid connections for completed or planned plants because the responsible grid operators are overloaded and unable to guarantee capacity.
An analysis of Austria's 14 largest distribution network operators shows that there is already a gap of four gigawatts between planned PV capacity and available grid capacity. In more ambitious expansion scenarios, such as the national grid infrastructure plan or the ENTSO-E forecasts, this gap could grow to ten to twenty gigawatts by 2040. In terms of energy, at least five terawatt-hours are needed in the grid expansion scenario to achieve the target of 30 terawatt-hours of PV energy in the Austrian electricity system.
The central problem is the volatile feed-in characteristics of photovoltaics: During midday in the summer months, solar power plants produce far more electricity than can be consumed immediately, leading to peak loads that, without suitable storage or flexible consumption models, threaten grid stability. A lack of incentives for grid-friendly behavior by plant operators further exacerbates the problem. The new Electricity Industry Act (ElWG), passed in December 2025 and known as the "Cheaper Electricity Act," addresses some of these issues: It introduces a PV peak load cap of 70 percent of the module output for new installations, thereby relieving pressure on the grid without significantly impacting the economic viability of the plants. For typical private households, this cap translates to only about two percent less feed-in per year.
Since the introduction of the Renewable Energy Expansion Act (EAG), the Austrian support system for photovoltaics has been based on a competitive market premium, which is awarded through regular auctions. The market premium is a surcharge on the reference market value and compensates for the difference between the generation costs and the market price. For the 2024 and 2025 auctions, a maximum price of 8.98 cents per kilowatt-hour was set; for 2026 and 2027, this value is 7.77 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Ground-mounted photovoltaic systems are subject to a structural disadvantage in terms of subsidies: The Renewable Energy Expansion Act (EAG) stipulates a 25 percent deduction from the market premium for conventional ground-mounted PV systems. This deduction reflects the political ambivalence towards large-scale ground-mounted projects, but economically disadvantages precisely those types of projects that are essential for achieving climate targets. Agri-photovoltaics is an important exception: Systems that meet the criteria for primary agricultural use defined in the EAG are exempt from this 25 percent deduction. This creates a targeted incentive for the dual use of land.
The tender volume for 2025 was at least 700 megawatts peak, and the funding contracts have a term of twenty years. A monetary security deposit of five euros per kilowatt peak is required for application, and a further security deposit of 45 euros per kilowatt peak is required upon contract acceptance. These requirements create a certain degree of market discipline but simultaneously increase the hurdles for smaller projects and local stakeholders. In addition to the market premiums, there are investment grants under the Renewable Energy Expansion Act (EAG) as well as funding programs from the individual federal states, which, however, vary considerably in type, amount, and availability.
Burgenland occupies a special position within Austria, the significance of which for the country's overall energy policy can hardly be overstated. Topographically favored by the extensive Pannonian Plain with its high solar irradiance and minimal mountainous terrain, this easternmost province has become the undisputed model for the domestic energy transition. With 1,027 megawatts peak of installed PV capacity by the end of 2024 and by far the densest project pipeline in the wind and solar photovoltaic sectors, Burgenland is a national leader.
The most ambitious individual project is the Tomorrow project, presented in March 2025 by Burgenland Energie, Austria's largest wind and solar photovoltaic company. The project portfolio comprises additional wind and solar capacity of approximately 2,000 megawatts, representing about 20 percent of Austria's total installed solar and wind capacity. The goal is to make Burgenland one of the first regions in the world to achieve net-zero carbon emissions and energy independence by 2030. The European Investment Bank (EIB) provided a loan of €250 million for this project – the largest EIB financing for green energy in Austria ever. A further €100 million is being provided through EIB-backed loans from Erste Bank and LBBW.
In parallel, the company Püspök is implementing six agrivoltaic plants with a combined peak output of 257 megawatts in northern Burgenland, financed with €144 million, €80 million of which comes from the European Investment Bank. This project is of enormous scale by Austrian standards: the 257 megawatts represent approximately one-tenth of the total newly installed PV capacity in Austria in 2023. The combination with an 8.6 megawatt-hour battery storage system and the simultaneous agricultural use of the generated electricity makes this project a pioneering undertaking in Austria's energy transition.
Further individual projects illustrate the rapid pace of development: The first plant in Nickelsdorf (Nickelsdorf I), with 14 megawatts and 23,000 solar modules on 13 hectares, went online in 2024, and the subsequent expansion, Nickelsdorf II, with 68 megawatts on 53 hectares, was started under construction in parallel. The plants in Parndorf (38 megawatt-peak) and Gattendorf (36 megawatt-peak), featuring innovative tracking systems, were begun in 2025 with planned commissioning by the end of the year.
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The core of this technological advancement is the deliberate departure from conventional clamp mounting, which has been the standard for decades. The new, more time- and cost-effective mounting system addresses this with a fundamentally different, more intelligent concept. Instead of clamping the modules at specific points, they are inserted into a continuous, specially shaped support rail and held securely in place. This design ensures that all forces – whether static loads from snow or dynamic loads from wind – are distributed evenly across the entire length of the module frame.
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The public debate surrounding open-field power plant developments is particularly intense in Austria – a country with a strong agricultural identity and a pronounced awareness of its landscape. Farmers, municipalities, and local residents raise objections to the conversion of arable land into dedicated power line corridors, to the alteration of the landscape, and to the perceived loss of farmers' livelihoods. This resistance is not irrational; it reflects real conflicts of interest and legitimate questions about long-term land use.
Agri-photovoltaics, or Agri-PV for short, offers a conceptual solution to this tension. The principle of dual use – using the same area simultaneously for agricultural production and electricity generation – doesn't resolve the seemingly insurmountable conflict between the energy transition and agriculture, but it significantly mitigates it. The Austrian Energy Act (EAG) defines two fundamental variants of Agri-PV: animal use (grazing under or between the modules) and plant use (arable farming under elevated modules).
Technically, agri-PV systems can be divided into two categories. Ground-level, elevated systems are more cost-effective and less visually impactful, but allow for more limited cultivation between the rows. Elevated systems with a clearance height of three to six meters allow the use of standard agricultural machinery and offer greater flexibility in land use, but are more expensive to install. Tracking systems that follow the sun's path optimize yield and can be programmed to maximize sunlight exposure for the plants below.
For farmers, agri-PV offers multiple economic advantages: In addition to supplementary income through land leasing or direct electricity purchase, the modules protect crops from hail, heavy rain, and heat waves, reduce pesticide use in some crops, and dampen evaporation during dry periods. These synergistic effects simultaneously increase the economic stability of farms and their attractiveness as partners for solar developers.
A widespread misconception in the public debate is the blanket equation of ground-mounted photovoltaic systems with soil sealing and environmental destruction. This equation is empirically false. Photovoltaic systems do not seal the soil in the same way as roads, parking lots, or commercial buildings – only the bases of the mounting structures are paved; the rest of the surface remains permeable. The Austrian Conference on Spatial Planning (ÖROK) monitoring confirms this with a remarkably small figure: In Austria, only one square kilometer of soil has been sealed by ground-mounted PV and wind turbines combined – a vanishingly small value compared to the 1,238 square kilometers of sealed transport surfaces.
On the contrary, studies and practical examples show that properly planned and extensively managed solar parks can significantly increase biodiversity at their location compared to intensively farmed arable land. Wien Energie was able to demonstrate at the Guntramsdorf and Schafflerhofstraße sites that converting intensively used arable land into extensively managed grassland with photovoltaic modules significantly increased the diversity of plants, insects, and birds. Through wildflower meadows, nesting aids, reptile habitats, and extensive maintenance, solar parks can become valuable biotopes that once again provide habitat for typical agricultural species such as the European hamster, grey partridge, and skylark.
The Pöchlarn eco-solar biotope in Lower Austria is a particularly interesting example of this integrated approach: On an area of five hectares with 10,000 modules and a capacity of 4.1 megawatts, 90 percent of the area is used for biodiversity, while the remaining ten percent is used for agri-PV trials with various management models. The University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU) is providing scientific support for the project. This approach demonstrates that solar parks can make a net-positive contribution to ecology not despite, but precisely because of, their land requirements, if ecological parameters are incorporated into the planning from the outset.
Photovoltaic Austria and the Austrian Institute for Spatial Planning have developed a joint planning guideline for ground-mounted photovoltaic systems based on these findings. This guideline serves as a reference for municipalities, planners, and nature conservation organizations. It includes requirements for structural design, ecological functionality, land management, and the efficiency of permitting procedures.
The economic attractiveness of solar parks and ground-mounted installations has increased dramatically in recent years, primarily driven by the global decline in module prices. The global LCOE (levelized cost of electricity) for photovoltaic power plants fell from US$0.17 per kilowatt-hour in 2013 to US$0.04 in 2023 – a decrease of approximately 76 percent. In 2024, the weighted average levelized cost of electricity for large-scale PV power plants was US$0.043 per kilowatt-hour, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
For Europe using single-axis tracking technology – the tracking module arrays typical of modern solar parks – Wood Mackenzie analyses predict electricity generation costs will be around ten percent lower in 2025 than in the previous year. This technological advancement now makes new solar parks in Austria economically competitive with conventional generation methods, even without subsidies – provided that grid connection is guaranteed and regulatory hurdles can be overcome.
For institutional investors, solar parks offer attractive features of a long-term infrastructure investment: predictable cash flows through twenty-year renewable energy market premium contracts, low operating costs, no fuel price risks, and a stable regulatory framework. The European Investment Bank's willingness to provide financing—250 million euros for the Burgenland portfolio alone, plus 80 million euros for the Püspök agri-PV project—signals that this investment class is also considered systemically important at the European level.
The economic logic for farmers who make their land available for agri-PV systems or operate them themselves is also compelling. Long-term lease payments from leasing land to solar developers offer a stable, weather-resistant source of income in an agricultural environment increasingly affected by climate risks. At the same time, the protective properties of the modules enable increased yields and reduced crop protection costs for certain crops. This dual economic benefit is a key driver for the growing willingness of the agricultural sector to participate constructively in agri-PV projects.
According to data from the PV Austria Factsheet for the end of 2024, installed PV capacity is very unevenly distributed across the nine federal states: Lower Austria leads with 1,994 megawatts peak, followed by Upper Austria with 1,767 megawatts peak, Styria with 1,539 megawatts peak, and Burgenland with 1,027 megawatts peak. The western federal states of Tyrol (536 MWp), Carinthia (519 MWp), Salzburg (470 MWp), and Vorarlberg (274 MWp) lag significantly behind, while Vienna reaches 300 megawatts peak.
This distribution partly reflects natural factors such as solar irradiance and available land, but is largely explained by the varying quality of energy spatial planning and regulatory frameworks. Carinthia, with its four-hectare limit for PV installations, makes it structurally impossible to realize large-scale open-field projects and thus effectively excludes itself from the main growth segment of the solar market. Tyrol, due to the topographical features of its mountainous region and stricter nature conservation requirements, is hesitant, but according to the Tyrolean potential analysis, it possesses considerable suitable areas with a usable potential of around 730 gigawatt-hours.
Upper Austria has long had a more lenient legal framework for the construction of photovoltaic (PV) systems, which partly explains the relative success of this federal state. Lower Austria's climate and energy roadmap aims to generate around 4,500 gigawatt-hours per year from PV systems by 2030, with agri-PV playing a prominent role in the strategy. The differing political stances of the state governments regarding land designation thus have direct and quantifiable effects on the progress of expansion and ultimately on achieving the national target.
In December 2025, after more than four years of political debate, the new Electricity Industry Act (ElWG), dubbed the "Cheaper Electricity Act," was passed by the National Council. This law replaces the Electricity Industry and Organization Act of 2010 and brings about the long-overdue reform of the Austrian electricity market regulations. Several elements are of direct relevance to the photovoltaic (PV) industry.
The PV peak load limit of 70 percent of module power for new systems with a grid-effective capacity of 3.68 kilowatts or more relieves grid congestion without completely blocking the economic viability of self-consumption. PV systems up to 20 kilowatts of grid-effective capacity can continue to feed into the grid free of charge; for larger systems, a fixed infrastructure contribution of 0.05 cents per kilowatt-hour will apply from 2027. The right to feed into the grid for systems under 15 kilowatts remains unchanged, up to the extent of the existing grid connection capacity.
A systemically significant new regulation concerns citizen-owned energy: The Electricity Industry Act (ElWG) expands existing energy community models and creates new opportunities for energy sharing within Austria. This is relevant for ground-mounted solar projects insofar as local energy communities can become more attractive as alternative marketing structures for solar power and increase the social acceptance of projects when local residents directly benefit from the energy generated. The electricity market reform also signals that Austrian policymakers intend to fundamentally modernize the framework for renewable energies – although the concrete implementation of the numerous detailed regulations will still take time.
Austria's starting point for the further expansion of solar parks and ground-mounted installations is characterized by a fundamental contradiction: The economic and technological potential is convincingly present, but the political and regulatory framework has not yet consistently utilized it. This contradiction is not an unavoidable constant – it is a political choice with changeable implications.
On the opportunity side, geography is a key factor: The eastern Austrian states, particularly Burgenland, southern Styria, and parts of Lower Austria, have solar irradiance levels comparable to those in southern Germany or the Czech Republic, enabling ground-mounted solar installations with high full-load hours. Combined with falling module prices and rising grid electricity prices, the economic viability of solar parks is continuously improving. The year 2025 exemplified how vulnerable Austria is due to its dependence on hydropower: A below-average rainfall year caused hydropower production to plummet by 24.8 percent, once again making Austria a net importer of electricity. Diversifying the renewable energy mix with more photovoltaics and wind power is therefore not only a climate goal but also a direct question of security of supply.
At the systemic level, the combination of photovoltaics with large-scale battery storage and wind power in hybrid plant concepts offers a qualitative advancement that paves the way for Austria to achieve a resilient, decentralized energy supply. The Burgenland model – hybrid parks of wind, photovoltaics, and battery storage on the same land with the same grid connections – is pioneering the efficient use of existing infrastructure. When areas already designated for wind power are combined with PV modules, separate permitting processes are eliminated, grid connection costs are shared, and the temporal complementarity of wind and solar power increases the overall plant's capacity factor.
However, the realization of these opportunities hinges on whether political actors create the necessary structural conditions. PV Austria specifically calls for: comprehensive energy spatial planning in all nine federal states, an annual evaluation of the implementation rate with sanctions for failure to meet targets, and a greening of the fiscal equalization system that rewards the federal states for good climate performance. These demands are not the maximalist positions of an interest group, but rather rational responses to a measurable planning gap.
The question of societal consensus remains open. Resistance in communities and from parts of the agricultural sector against purely open-field solar projects is real and must be seriously addressed. The model of citizen participation—where the local population benefits directly through cheaper electricity or financial investments—has shown in Germany and in initial Austrian projects that resistance can be significantly reduced if the added value remains locally anchored. Austria has laid the legal foundation for such models with the Electricity Industry Act (ElWG) and the extended Energy Community Rules; their widespread application to open-field solar projects could be key to overcoming the remaining societal obstacles.
In a global comparison of industrialized nations, Austria has a more developed renewable energy base than most countries, driven by its historical dominance of hydropower. This is a strength – but also a fallacy if it leads to underestimating the urgency of further expansion. Photovoltaics – and with it, ground-mounted solar parks – is not an option in Austria that can be chosen or not. It is a structural necessity, made unavoidable by the arithmetic of the energy balance.
Konrad Wolfenstein
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