Austria boosts renewable energy funding

VIENNA - Austria's parliament passed a bill Thursday hiking government funds for renewable energy as the anti-nuclear country seeks to cut itself off entirely from atomic power.

With the new law, approved by all parties except the opposition far-right Freedom Party, government funding to renewable energy will reach 550 million euros ($790 million) by 2015 from about 350 million euros now.


"Austria will halt its reliance on nuclear power imports by 2015 at the latest and will become an electricity exporter again," Economy Minister Reinhold Mitterlehner said in a statement after the vote.

Nuclear power imports currently cover 6.0 percent of Austrian demand.

Under the bill, the government will increase its subsidies for new renewable energy projects to 50 million euros from a current 21 million euros, although the sum will gradually drop to 40 million euros after 10 years, to be divided mainly between wind power and biomass, but also solar and hydro-electric power.

The government will also free up some 80 million euros for wind power and 28 million euros for solar power projects currently on hold, in the hope of dramatically increasing production.

With this new law, Austria will source 85 percent of its electricity needs from renewable energy by 2020, from a current 68 percent -- putting it in a leading position in Europe -- Mitterlehner said.


by Marlowe Hood
(c) 2011 AFP

Source : AFP