A planned tariff reform in Austria is meant to lower electricity grid fees for most households, but the Austrian Workers’ Chamber (AK) is warning that broad fee exemptions for power storage could shift costs back onto ordinary homes. Ahead of a final decision, the AK says storage is vital for the energy transition, yet the bill for running the grid must not be dumped on other users.
The chamber accused the storage industry and the ÖVP-led economics ministry of lobbying in recent weeks to water down what it called a good proposal from regulator E-Control. Every fee exemption for storage, the AK argues, automatically raises costs for all other grid customers, because total grid fees must always cover network operators’ expenses, reported by oe24.
According to AK calculations, other grid users already pay about 60 million euros a year extra because many pumped-storage plants are exempt from fees or pay reduced rates. If Austria’s political target of five gigawatts of storage capacity were fully exempted, the chamber estimates this would burden other customers with around 350 million euros annually, roughly 10 percent of total grid costs. “Whoever wants to exempt storage from grid fees must also say who will ultimately pay the bill,” said AK energy expert Joel Tölgyes.
The AK acknowledged that storage can help stabilise the energy system, but said it is hard to predict how large that contribution will be. With Austria’s grid increasingly connected to the wider European market, there is a risk that domestic subsidies and fee discounts could effectively flow abroad. More storage is needed, the workers’ representative insisted, but costs must be shared fairly.
Energy Burgenland, Austria’s largest producer of wind and solar power, said about 15 percent of wind and PV generation is currently curtailed, only for the country to import electricity from abroad again a few hours later. CEO Stephan Sharma called this economically nonsensical; “We are destroying domestic renewable electricity and then importing it back at high cost. The solution is storage.”
