Photovoltaics in Austria - open space and rooftop potential analysis on a high spatial resolution

Austria aims to meet 100% of its electricity demand from domestic renewable sources by 2030 which means, that an additional 30 TWh per year are required. Solar energy will play a significant role to reach this goal, meaning the need for a substantial increase in photo-voltaic capacity. While some federal states and municipalities released a solar roof-top cadastre, there is lacking knowledge on the estimation of the potential of both, open space installations and roof-top modules, on a national level with a high spatial resolution. Results show significant differences between urban and rural areas, as well as between the Alpine regions and the Prealpine- and Easter Plain areas.

The work includes a framework to automatically process solar PV data and land-use data was developed and openly available for usage. The framework is able to fetch solar data automatically from a defined source, and join, manipulate and alter it with geodata applying various spatial methods.