Great potential for renewable energies. In an interdisciplinary project as part of the NAWI Graz master’s programme in Environmental Systems Sciences, 28 students and four professors from both TU Graz and the University of Graz worked on a sustainable electricity concept to be implemented in Austria by 2050. In essence they looked at the sustainability of the four renewable energy carriers hydro-electric power, wind power, photovoltaics and concentrated solar power and put together a rough draft of how Austria’s power supply could be covered exclusively by these technologies by 2050. The draft also examined further development needs and the ecological and economic impact of such a switchover.
"The main message of the study is that relatively little investment in the low single-digit percent range of the Gross Domestic Product could enable a switchover to a completely sustainable power supply," summarises Michael Narodoslawsky, professor at the Institute for Process and Particle Engineering of TU Graz. This power supply system would have an ecological footprint amounting to only some 1.3 % of today’s system. Furthermore, the results of the project show which electricity-producing technologies would have to be built and where to cover Austrian potential as best as possible compared to expected consumption.
The Sustainable Process Index (SPI), which was developed at TU Graz in the 1990s, was used to calculate the ecological footprint. To details of the study.
Students of Environmental Systems Sciences present a sustainable electricity concept for Austria by 2050.
Information
Contact
Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn.
Institute for Process and Particle Engineering
Petersgasse 116-118
8010 Graz, Austria
Phone: +43 316 873 30460
narodoslawsky@tugraz.at
www.tugraz.at/institute/ippt/
