In view of global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, energy demand scenarios have established themselves as a proven tool to identify promising measures to achieve climate neutrality goals. In the context of this work, a range of development options with regard to energy consumption and GHG emissions is to be mapped for Upper Austria, the highly industrialized, most GHG-intensive province of Austria. This is done by modelling three different energy demand scenarios up to the year 2050, which enables the identification of priorities and action plans.
The first scenario called Trend reflects the historical development of energy demand and at the same time serves as a reference for alternative development options to evaluate the effectiveness of measures and assumptions made. The second scenario named With Additional Measures - Upper Austria (WAM-OÖ) represents a path of development for Upper Austria that considers both already implemented and planned political requirements and industrial technology conversions. The third scenario called Sector Coupling (SK) aims to represent a possible path to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Here, linear optimization is used to model a scenario in which the annual primary exergy demand reaches the minimum value, required to cover the useful energy demand from the scenario Trend in 2050.
The scenario Trend shows an increasing final energy consumption of about 18,2 TWh with a simultaneous increase of GHG emissions by about 2.6 MtCO2e until 2050. In the scenario SK, energy consumption decreases by about 17,3 TWh until 2050 and climate neutrality is achieved through electrification in all economic sectors as well as the use of biomethane, green hydrogen and potential industrial waste heat. In the scenario WAM-OÖ, energy savings due to efficiency improvements and technology changes are offset by factors such as population and economic growth. This results in an increase in energy demand of 3,3 TWh by 2050, while GHG emissions decrease by about 11 MtCO2e to 7 MtCO2e. The simultaneous increase in energy consumption and decrease in GHG emissions can be explained by the fuel shift. In the scenarios WAM-OÖ and SK, fossil fuels are increasingly substituted by climate-neutral energy sources. In particular, the demand for green gas and electricity increases massively within these scenarios. This results in the future challenge of creating sufficient capacities of renewable energy sources as well as expanding the infrastructure of grid-based energy sources along with sectorcoupling flexibility options.