Highlights in 2020

Impact of your national clean energy innovation activity

Since the beginning of the Austrian MI Membership in 2018, activities of the energy research and innovation community were bundled, and collaborations were intensified. Highlight of the MI Austria activities is the annual Mission Innovation Austria week[1], the platform for all drivers and shapers of innovation in the energy system of the future.

Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, the Mission Innovation Week Austria 2020 and 2021 have been held as online events. The conference days were scheduled for April 28-29, 2021.

Moreover, Austria has initiated new partnerships with India and Morocco who were participating in the MI Calls.

Update on clean energy innovation policies and strategies

In 2020, the Austrian government[2] has committed itself in the framework of the new government agreement (2020 – 2024) to a fast track to decarbonisation with the overall goal to reach climate neutrality by 2040. A corresponding reduction path of CO₂ emissions will be elaborated in the near future. Energy research and technology development will be key elements of this roadmap.

The current framework of the clean energy innovation policies in Austria are the Climate and Energy Strategy #mission2030[3] (published in 2018) and its implementation plan (National Climate- and Energy Plan[4]; submitted to the European Commission in 2019). By 2030, Austria pursues ambitious goals including:

reduction of CO₂ emissions by 36% compared to 2005.
providing 100% of its total electricity consumption (national balance) from renewable energy sources.
increase in the share of renewable energy in the gross final energy demand to 45-50%.

In 2020 Austria has published an updated Implementation Plan for the Energy Research Initiative[5] (Research Chapter of the NECP). It covers missions and related innovation goals, public R&D measures and concrete innovation activities.

Major innovation initiatives and programmes in 2020/21

New RD&D initiatives were started in 2021 with national COVID recovery funds of 15 M€:

“100%-Renewable-Energy Regions“– prototyping model solutions for 100% renewable energy in a regional context (industrial region, wind-region, agricultural region) should be developed and demonstrated.

Climate Neutral City: urban energy labs should be installed with the goal of accelerating climate neutrality in cities (demo projects in districts…)

A new R&D initiative “Circular Economy” was launched. It aims to accelerate the development of a circular economy, thus achieving positive climate and environmental effects while at the same time promoting the development of relevant knowledge. A first R&D call with national COVID recovery funds of 10 M€ was opened in 2021, focussing on:

Innovation for circular economy
Circular procurement and manufacturing
Intensification of the use of goods
Recycling

A next MI/ERA-Net Call is planned on the topic of Heating and Cooling.

Private sector engagement in 2020/21

The engagement of the private sector in clean energy innovation and research policies and projects has a long tradition in Austria. For more than ten years, the Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (former Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology) as well as the Climate and Energy Fund of the Austrian Federal Government focused on collaborations between industry and the research community in their programmes. This led to a significant private sector contribution to new programmes such as the Flagship Regions Energy where more than doubling of public money by the private sector is expected. As a consequence, leading industries were involved in Austrian Mission Innovation activities from the very beginning. This was manifested in the cooperation with an advisory board of CEOs. The Mission Innovation Austria advisory board meets once a year and advises the Federal Minister and the Ministry on Austria’s engagement in Mission Innovation and Austria’s RDI policy.

Major activities in support of the Innovation Challenges in 2020/21

Initiation of the MICall series for cooperative RD&D projects. The scope of the MICalls was designed in an ongoing co-creation process with the MI-ICs 1, 6, 7 and 8.

Austria was actively involved in the development of the MI 2.0 missions and the MI 2.0 platform, in particular the module collaborate which combines MI Innovation Challenges/Innovation Communities and Funding Dialogues and Calls.

Public sector RD&D investment

The baseline is calculated by averaging the budget for project funding of the Flagship Projects in the national programmes for energy research (City of Tomorrow and Energy Research Programme). On average €16 million of funding have been granted each year between 2014 and 2016 for flagship projects. An allocation of R&D expenditures was not foreseen in the calculation of the baseline.

New Collaborations

Collaborator: ~40 IEA and partner countries
- Name of collaboration
  - IEA Research Cooperation Call 2020
- Brief Description
  - Funding of collaborations in Tasks and Annexes and Executive Committees of IEA Technology Collaborations Programmes.
- Sectors
  - Public-public
- Type of collaboration
  - Research
- Duration
  - 2018 to 2021
- Funding amount
  - 3 M€
- Additional information
  - https://nachhaltigwirtschaften.at/en/iea/

Collaborator: Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden India + 11 further regions and countries in Europe (non MI-countries)
- Name of collaboration
  - MI-Call 19 / ERA-NET Smart Energy Systems Call 2019 Integrated regional Energy Systems
- Brief Description
  - A Transnational Joint Programming Platform to Initiate Co-Creation and Promote Energy System Innovation
- Sectors
  - Public-public
- Type of collaboration
  - Research, development and demonstration
- Duration
  - (left blank)
- Funding amount
  - 9 M€
- Additional information
  - https://www.eranet-smartenergysystems.eu/

Collaborator: 18 Countries (including India and Morocco as MI-Partners outside the ERA-NET)
- Name of collaboration
  - MI-Call 20 ERA-NET Smart Energy Systems Joint Call 2020 On digital transformation for green energy transition
- Brief Description
  - A Transnational Joint Programming Platform to Initiate Co-Creation and Promote Energy System Innovation
- Sectors
  - Public-public
- Type of collaboration
  - Research, development and demonstration
- Duration
  - (left blank)
- Funding amount
  - 2 M€
- Additional information
  - eranet-smartenergysystems.eu

Collaborator: 16 European Countries including MI Members: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UK
- Name of collaboration
  - JPI Urban Europe Call 2020- ERA-NET Cofund Urban Accessibility and Connectivity
- Brief Description
  - JPI Urban Europe was created in 2010 to address the global urban challenges of today with the ambition to develop a European research and innovation hub on urban matters and create European solutions by means of coordinated research.
- Sectors
  - Public-public
- Type of collaboration
  - Research, development and demonstration
- Duration
  - (left blank)
- Funding amount
  - 7 M€
- Additional information
  - https://jpi-urbaneurope.eu/

Collaborator: 11 European Countries and Regions including MI members: Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden
- Name of collaboration
  - SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 Additional Joint Call
- Brief Description
  - A European network of national and regional funding organisations in the field of solar electricity generational.
- Sectors
  - Public-public
- Type of collaboration
  - Research, development
- Duration
  - (left blank)
- Funding amount
  - 3 M€
- Additional information
  - http://www.solar-era.net/