Austria

Austria could become a gigawatt market for the first time in 2022. Its cumulative solar capacity is potentially set to hit 4 GW, up from 2.78 GW at the end of 2021. The country is expected to install more than 1 GW of solar every year until 2030.

Aerocompact’s new CompactFLAT GS mounting structure can be installed 40 cm above rooftop surfaces, with tilt angles of 10 and 15 degrees. The company says the product is ideal for bifacial solar arrays and green rooftops.

Domestic hot water, with a heating system powered exclusively by DC solar power, has now covered the needs of an apartment building in Linz, Austria, for a period of a year. The 14 residential units are each connected to their own 1.36 KW solar arrays.

Austria’s cumulative installed PV capacity has now surpassed 2.78 GW.

Nickelsdorf, a small town in eastern Austria, has started building a 120 MW solar project. Upon completion, it will be the nation’s largest solar park.

The Austrian authorities allocated €40 million ($42.8 million) in the next round of the nation’s solar-plus-storage rebate scheme, across 11,000 projects. Rebates are available for PV installations up to 10 kW in size.

An international research team has proposed the use of water from high-altitude rivers and regenerative braking in electric trucks to store electricity for reuse in power networks, or for transport purposes.

Lift Energy Storage Technology is a proposed long-term storage solution that relies on elevators to bring solid masses to the tops of buildings in charging mode. It then lowers the same mass to produce electricity in discharge mode.

The latest global PV installer survey by Germany’s EUPD Research offers a hint of the solar brands which installers, mostly based in Europe, gravitate toward. This year’s report also ventured to South Africa and considered mounting systems for the first time.

The Austrian government has more than quadrupled the budget for the 2022 edition of its rooftop solar rebate program.