Project titel: LoadShift

The project „LoadShift" addresses the economic, technical, legal and organisational aspects of efforts to shift energy consumption patterns from high-load periods to load-valleys. The incorporation of economic-technical potentials of households, industrial and commercial businesses and municipal infrastructure entities into the analysis of load shift potentials ensures comprehensive estimations regarding the efforts of reaching different potential degrees, and also provides the cost curve for Austria. Finally, a decision matrix is designed, from which recommendations for action for public and private decision makers concerning the increase in energy efficiency of the Austrian energy system are derived.

Projecttitel: SmaRAGd

"SmaRAGd" deals with judicial aspects concerning selected functionalities of smart grids, such as constitutional and legal implications of active distribution grids, the control of current consumption, the linking of local power generators to the grid, the storage of electricity in electric cars as well as flexible pricing models. The legal analysis shall identify gaps in the regulatory framework as well as bring forth certain proposals for amendment.

Project title: SESAME

Threats for the supply of electricity have changed dramatically throughout the last decade: additional to the natural and accidental ones, the new threat of malicious attacks needs to be considered. Such attacks might be jointly imparted so as to affect large portions of the European grid, make repair difficult and cause huge societal impact. The outstanding importance and the far more complex level of interconnectivity of electricity distribution / transmission / generation compared to the supply through other energy carriers - makes the development of a highly focused toolkit for its protection an essential and urgent task.

Project title: GlobaLink

The prior objective of the project GlobaLink is to identify, define and evaluate a global climate change policy architecture based on the linking of the European Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) with emerging domestic emission trading schemes (ETS) worldwide. Further, the economic and ecological effects of different linking scenarios are derived for Austria. The analysis is based on a legal, institutional and economic assessment framework. This will allow decision makers on national and international levels to develop an economically efficient and ecologically effective strategy for future climate change policy.

Project title: Reltelework

The project “The relevance of teleworking in the light of ongoing challenges in the structure of Upper Austria’s mobility sector” aims at the evaluation of the economic, energetic and ecological effects of traffic reduction due to an intensification of teleworking for commuters using the relation “Mühlviertel-Linz” in Upper Austria. The quantitative and qualitative outcomes of this approach of teleworking can be useful with regard to traffic planning and management. It is shown that economic, ecological and energetic impacts are given by a sufficient intensity of implementation.

Project Title: BlackÖ.1

The project „Blackouts in Austria“ analyzes the economic and social consequences of largescale blackouts within the Austrian electricity network. The aim of the project is to create a comprehensive database which provides a basis for political decision concerning infrastructure, economics and security (Part I) and to develop strategies to ensure the current level of security and for the prevention of large-scale blackouts in Austria. The main objective of this project is to identify potential damages to critical infrastructure in the electricity sector and to analyse the monetary costs of power outages to the Austrian economy. Ensuring the security of energy supplies and reducing economic vulnerabilities have become important issues in advanced economies. Therefore, profound knowledge of the status-quo and future challenges to the electricity sector and their socio-economic ramifications are of great importance. BlackÖ.1 is designed to determine potential losses from power outages and to lay the foundation for future cost-benefit analyses regarding investment decisions in the Austrian electricity infrastructure.

Project title: INKOBA

INKOBA aims at optimizing industrial parks in rural regions. As a concrete example, INKOBA parks (industrial parks developed within a co-operation of several municipalities) in Upper Austria will be subject to a feasibility study regarding planning and optimisation of their respective energy systems. The study accompanies the planning process of local authorities and provides scenarios for a network of energy supply and utilization as basis for the future development of development areas for enterprises. Important basic conditions, as for instance the availability of resources, efficiency increase at new facilities, etc. are included in the projected research process.

Project title: EnergieZer

A scheme of tradable white certificates is a modern approach to enhance energy efficiency and applied in several European countries. The tradability guarantees the achievement of the predetermined targets at minimal economic costs. In Austria such a scheme has not yet been installed, which should enforce energetic sustainability and cost affectivity.

First, the exact functionality of a Tradable White Certificates scheme will be worked out. Second, different theoretical layouts of the scheme will be highlighted and shall be observed and evaluated in existing international (especially European) programs by analyzing literature or interviewing agents of concerned market participants. A concluding recommendation, based on an analysis of the costs of measures in Austria, will be given.

Project title: FB Vision 2020

The project FB-Vision 2020 assesses the possibility to implement a technological overhaul of the brewery in Freistadt. The goal of this overhaul is to establish on the one hand a more efficient brewery operation based on renewable energy resources and on the other hand an integrated energy supply for the households of the historical city centre which is subject to monument protection regulations. In the context of the study the brewery as enterprise and the heat supply of the city centre are regarded as overall system to develop an optimum which achieves the smallest ecological footprint and the largest economic value for the region. The study accompanies the planning process of brewery and city and provides scenarios for a network of energy supply and utilisation as basis for the technological investment decisions. Important basic conditions, as for instance the availability of resources, efficiency increase at new facilities, etc.

Project title: e-MOTIVATION

Within this project which is undertaken by a project consortium consisting of scientists, energy suppliers, equipment manufacturers and consumers technological, administrative and judicial claims on the creation and implementation of intelligent energy billing procedures (Smart Billing) on the basis of intelligent measurement systems in Austria are specified. This project does not only concentrate on the current discussions of “Intelligent measurement of electricity”, it also has an eye on all grid-bound and non-grid-bound energy sources, analyses existing solutions in Austria and abroad. As a result the project develops optimized solutions for Austria.

Project title: AWEEMSS

By January 2008 the EU-27 member states have to implement the EU directive 2006/23/EC concerning end use energy efficiency and energy services. From this date the member states have a schedule of 9 years to reduce their end energy demand by 9 %. According to the directive the member states have the right to select out of a variety of instruments to increase their end use energy efficiency. It is the objective of this scientific project to develope a cost efficient strategy for Austria to achieve the targets of this Directive.