High in the Austrian Alps, hundreds of construction workers are working on a massive underground project to store hydroelectricity as climate change reduces electricity production in the water-dependent country. Austria gets more than 60 percent of the electricity it produces from renewable energy sources, compared to the world average of 16 percent, and there are more than 3,100 dams on its rivers.

But the amount of electricity produced by hydropower in the European Union country has dropped from about 45 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2020 to 42 TWh in 2021 as water levels drop.

The alarm bells are ringing when Austria, still heavily dependent on Russian gas, had to import electricity for the first time last year. In the snow-covered mountain range above the village of Kaprun in Austria’s Salzburg region, trucks enter and exit a vast underground construction site filled with statues of St. Barbara, the patron saint of miners and others engaged in dangerous trade.

Earthworks of Limberg 3 hydroelectric power station are being completed. The plant is scheduled to be operational by 2025 to store electricity to meet peaks in electricity consumption and mitigate changing weather conditions, including increasingly erratic and erratic rainfall.

“We want to be well prepared,” said Klaus Hebenstreit, CEO of major energy producer Verbund.

“The distribution of (water) will change throughout the year: We will have less water in the summer (due to the drought) due to melting snow and more in the winter,” he added.

According to Roman Neunteufel, senior researcher at the Vienna University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria, like the rest of Europe, has been affected by drought for two years.

“If you experience several dry years in a row, it becomes very noticeable… Water levels have never been this low since records began,” he said about 100 years ago.

The World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said in a report last month that Europe needs to prepare for the more deadly heatwaves caused by climate change. The fastest-warming continent last year was about 2.3 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels, according to the report. Alpine glaciers recorded a new record loss of mass in a year in 2022, due to very low snow levels in winter, hot summers and wind-blown Saharan dust deposits.

Complex diversification

The semi-state Verbund continues to invest billions of euros in hydroelectric power, despite criticism from activists who say the dams and stations have a major environmental impact.

“The expansion of hydro energy should be ecologically and socially compatible… The complete expansion of hydroelectric energy is not a situation that will solve our energy problem. Instead, it’s necessary to conserve energy,” says the website of the Word Wildlife Fund.

Verbund is looking for alternatives.

“Water will continue to be extremely important to us, but we also want to develop solar and wind power. We’re diversifying,” Hebenstreit told AFP as temperatures rise to 37 degrees Celsius (99 degrees Fahrenheit) in Vienna.

Aiming to get all of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, Austria has been slow to develop wind and solar energy, which only make up 13 percent of its electricity.

“Solar energy is extremely abundant in the summer … But in the winter there is very little production, which is when we need it for heating,” said Neunteufel. “And planning with wind is even harder: There can be windless days at any time, and then wind power generation basically stops,” he said. Source