Energy R&D - Public Expenditure in Austria 2009

Austria's public expenditure for energy related research and development in 2009 was 92,1268,114 Euro. This was an increase of 30% (21,101,158 Euro) when compared to 2008.

The highest proportion of this expenditure (85.1%) [2008: 84.8%] was supplied by the government (federal, regional, funding organisations), 14.9% [2008: 15.2%] was spent by publicly financed colleges of higher education, research institutions and universities.

The expenditure of the federal ministries, either directly from the responsible department or via projects within their field of responsibility (excluding the Climate and Energy Funds), totalled to 27,016,311 Euro [2008: 21,030,391 Euro], with the Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology investing 80.3% [2008: 68.6%].

Projects generated via the “Neue Energien 2020” (“New Energies 2020”) program helped the Climate and Energy Funds retain the position of the statistical unit with the highest expenditures (30,836,148 Euro) [2008: 30,191,351 Euro].

In 2009 the Research Promotion Fund (FFG) processed 62.7 Million Euro [2008: around 49.3 Million Euro], the majority of transaction were related to programs run on behalf of the federal government and the Climate and Energy Funds. The bottom-up programs of the Research Promotion Fund tripled their funding for R&D in connection with energy to 9,593,460 Euro in 2009 [2008: 3,258,200 Euro]. The expenditure of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) for basic research within the energy sector, at 1.201.718 Euro, is clearly less than in the previous year [2008: 2,365,233 Euro]. The aws (Austrian Business Service) announced for the first time for 2009 expenditure of 1,565,027 Euro for energy-related R&D. Further projects totalling 1.7 million Euro, covered by other projects of the ministry, were also undertaken.

The total expenditure of the regional governments (federal provinces) was 8,342,794 Euro [2008: 3,529,698 Euro]. The highest expenditure was in Vienna with 47.9% [2008: 44.6%], followed by Upper Austria with 19,5% [2008: 31.3%].

The universities spent 7,096,878 Euro [2008: 6,551,806 Euro] in total. As in previous years the technical universities in Vienna and Graz had the highest expenditures. The expendi-ture of the (non-university) research institutions was 4,996,606 Euro [2008: 3,383,676], more then half of the amount was invested by AIT (Austrian Institute of Technology). 1,649,172 Euro was invested by specialist high schools for R&D from own financial sources [2008: 856,601 Euro].

40.6% of expenditure took place in the “Energy Efficiency” sector [2008: 33.1%], overtaking the “Renewable Energy Carriers” sector with 35.3% [2008: 34,4%]. Both of these areas continue to clearly define the priorities for the publicly financed energy research within Austria, particularly Bio-Energy (expenditure of 20 Million Euro) and R&D- topics in relation to energy efficient buildings (planning, materials, heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, lighting etc.) with an expenditure of around 15 million Euro.

More than three quarters (79%) [2008: 74%] of the funding was used for applied research, 16% [2008: 14%] for experimental development and 5% [2008: 12%] for elementary re-search.

900 energy research projects and activities were registered and analysed for the year 2009 [2008: 715).

DI Andreas Indinger
Österreichische Energieagentur - Austrian Energy Agency
Phone: +43 (0)1 586 15 24 - 111
E-Mail: andreas.indinger@energyagency.at
Web: http://www.energyagency.at