In  2007, Austria's final energy consumption made up 1.086 PJ (energy balance of Statistik Austria). The most final energy consuming sector since 2002 has been the transport sector. Together with manufacturing and service industries transportation are the main reasons for the increase  of Austria's energy consumption, whereas the domestic and the agricultural sector are rather stagnating.

A consideration of the proportional shares of the various sectors among Austria's total final energy consumption from 1990 onwards shows that in particular the consumption of private households has decreased, whilst the proportional share of the transport sector has risen from 25% in the year 1990 to 31% in 2006.

Also an analysis of efficient energy consumption sees the transport sector (“traction”) in the year 2007 ahead of all others – it is the category with the highest consumption of final energy, followed by room heating and air-conditioning. Private households determine final energy consumption for room heating and air-conditioning on first hand. In the categories steam production, industrial furnaces and floor-mounted engines, the manufacturing sector is dominant. Final energy consumption  for lighting and computer operation as well as for electro-chemical purposes is far smaller than the other categories.

Manufacturing sector

The Directive 2006/32/EG is exempting enterprises, which are subject to emission trade from its  provisions. In the manufacturing sector, exactly these enterprises are among often show  very high  energy intensity. The following chart shows the importance of emission trading enterprises among the total of final energy consumption in the various sub-sectors of the manufacturing sector.

Energy-intensive industries such as the production of paper, iron and steel as well as industries proceeding stone, earths and glass are covered by emission trade to a high extent. This becomes evident when looking at their share within total final energy consumption after subtraction of quantities succumbed to emission trade – the remaining value is far smaller than the initial one.

Nevertheless, the paper and printing industries by far show the highest final energy consumption among all sub-sectors,  followed by the construction industries, iron and steel production, chemical and petrochemical industry and the processing of stone and earths.