Energy

The "fuel" for a large number of electric vehicles in Austria - if not for the total range of existing cars - can be produced from purely renewable energy sources.

An annual electricity consumption of approx. 1 billion kWh is calculated for 500,000 electric cars. This means that the present number of passenger cars in Austria would consume just under 9 billion kWh of electricity per year. In contrast, Austria's entire hydropower expansion potential by 2020 amounts to a total of 7 billion kWh, the amount for electricity from wind and biomass comes to 4.5 billion kWh. By 2015, Verbund alone is constructing new water and hydropower plants with an annual generation of 1 billion kWh. This is sufficient electric energy for 500,000 electric cars.

Mobile power package
With electromobility's conquering of the market, other very different plus points could be offered alongside the comprehensive ecological and – with the further development of the battery technology – also significantly increasing economic advantages: the use of the batteries in vehicles as small reservoir power plants. This idea, to use electric cars for the decentralized storage of electricity, was also developed with the goal of better integration of wind and solar energy within the electricity supply. The concept behind this is actually very simple: cars are "standing vehicles" for up to 97 % of their entire lifespan. The predominant majority is therefore only actively used for a very short period in the day (for the drive to work, for example). For the rest of the day, around 23 hours, the cars are parked and connected to power grids. Electric cars could be used for the purposes of energy conservation. They are then charged up when there is sufficient electricity available from renewable sources (primarily from hydropower). In future, they could release the energy stored in the battery (approx. 10 % of the charge gauge) back into the public grid during peak consumption periods. In this way, fluctuations in the production of electricity from wind and solar energy can be balanced out. The use of this stored energy would give – projected on the domestic car fleet – a total potential of an additional 8,000 megawatts of power plant capacity in Austria. In comparison with this: the entire Austrian power plant park currently provides around 18,000 MW.

Power connections
Compared with other forms of engines, the electric car has a further decisive advantage: Although the necessary charging structure still has to be developed, the existing nationwide power supply grid can already be draw upon today – theoretically, every street lamp could serve as the basis for an electricity charging station.