The Waldviertel region is characterized by long distances, few energy-intensive industries, lots of open space, and abundant biomass. The advantages of generating heat and electricity from renewable sources are offset by special requirements in the areas of mobility and energy distribution, as well as highly fluctuating seasonal total energy demand.

In order to achieve the goals of national and European climate policy, which calls for a phase-out of fossil fuels by 2040 and 2050, respectively, the energy transition and, with it, a mobility transition must be initiated. The goal is 100% renewable energies in electricity and heat supply as well as mobility.

This flagship project of the regional real-world laboratory 100% Renewable Energies Waldviertel focuses on the use of the flexibilities created by sector coupling of electricity, local and neighborhood heating, and e-mobility, with special consideration given to the biomass typical of the region to cover seasonal fluctuations in order to achieve climate targets. Flexibility means that either the energy consumption of one or more loads can be adjusted or the energy output of one or more energy sources can be dynamically regulated. Storage systems are the perfect form of flexibility because they can do both, depending on their charge level. Sector coupling enables energy to be exchanged between different applications, allowing surplus renewable energy to be used interchangeably or stored. Surplus here means that this renewable energy share could not be generated if it were not additionally consumed, e.g., through load shifting, sector coupling, and storage.

This flagship project develops system solutions for the energy transition and implements them in four model applications for (a) local and neighborhood heating networks, (b) renewable-friendly and grid-friendly electromobility, (c) dynamic operation of biomass heat generation and combined heat and power, and (d) integrated electricity-heat energy communities. The objectives are toto increase the absorption capacity of electrical grids for distributed volatile feed-in so that renewable decentralized energy generation can be effectively expanded, to optimize local and neighborhood heating networks in order to provide heat efficiently and absorb surpluses from PV and wind power when needed, optimizing mobility for electric vehicles so that batteries can be used both for driving and as storage to provide flexibility, and using biomass as seasonal storage to compensate for daily and seasonal electricity shortages.