Leveraging demand-side potentials for energy security and resilience in Austria

Abstract

Energy security is a major concern for Austria. Austria is an energy importer, with a notable and historically grown reliance on fossil fuel imports, mainly Russian gas for industry and heating and oil for transport. The related vulnerability of the Austrian economy following the Ukraine and now Iran war and the related energy crises necessitate action to bolster the system’s resilience. The Austrian government and other stakeholders have prioritised to enhance energy security. Some demand-side interventions and actions by users have shown notable potential. However, prevailing policy approaches predominantly emphasise energy supply, especially diversifying gas imports to reduce the dependence on Russia and reactive emergency measures targeted at affordability. Focusing on security of supply comes with the danger of novel lock-ins and overlooking the transformational potential of demand-side interventions and their many co-benefits for societal resilience, including health, trade balance, employment, and climate. To this end, we investigate how different supply- and demand-side interventions perform across diverse indicators of energy security for Austria using an accounting model. These interventions cover sectors such as buildings, transport, and industry. We show that demand-side actions demonstrate superior efficacy and provide an untapped readily available potential compared to conventional focus on import diversification in bolstering resilience and fortifying Austria against energy-related challenges, contributing to other policy goals such as climate change mitigation. We end with a call for action to Austrian policymakers to support demand-side actions to harness these resource potentials and diverse co-benefits instead of locking the energy system into expensive supply side infrastructure hampering transformational change opportunities.