Both at national and at European level quantified energy efficiency goals are at hand.

The Directive for Energy Efficiency and Energy Services states the aim of reaching an annual energy saving target of 9% of average final energy consumption of the period 2001-2005 from the year 2016 onwards. For Austria this means an annual savings target of 17,9 PJ in 2011 and 80,4 PJ in 2016.

The Federal Government of Austria in its government programme for the 24^th  legislation period calls for a „stronger de-coupling between economic growth and energy consumption in order to improve energy intensity.“ Until 2010, an integrated strategy for energy and climate policy as well as action plans for the sectors construction and housing, mobility, energy management and for the entrepreneurial sector shall be developed.

Additionally, an energy efficiency master plan shall be developed. Moreover, in the chapter "Climate and Environment", the creation of an energy efficiency Act is announced.

Scenarios

• The black line in the following chart shows the development of Austria’s energy intensity during the period from 1995 to 2005. From the year 2005 on to the year 2020, the energy intensity line is created by linear extrapolation; 
• The interrupted green line shows necessary reduction of energy intensity in order to meet the goal stated in the Government Programme. 
• The red line shows the course of energy intensity according to the baseline-scenario predicted by the Austrian research institute WIFO (Wirtschaftsforschungsinstitut; Austrian Institute of Economic Research);
• the orange-coloured line shows the energy intensity according to the  efficiency scenario predicted by WIFO (also measured as the ratio between final energy consumption in TJ and the GDP in milliards of Euro);
• The blue line shows the baseline-scenario based on the model PRIMES, which is contained in the publication of the European Commission „European Energy and Transport, Trends to 2030 – Update 2007“.

Energy savings potentials

If during the next years to come concrete measures will be implemented in an ambitious way, both the 2016-goal of the Directive 2006/32/EG as well as the 2020-goal can be reached.

As a part of a study ordered by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economics (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft, Familie und Jugend), the Austrian Energy agency has calculated energy savings potentials for various measures. The calculations carried out in this study demonstrate that as a consequence of the ambitious measures listed in this study, the energy savings potential for the period until 2020 amounts to 93,55 PJ per annum.

The costs of additional investment necessary in order to achieve these savings in the time-span until 2020 will amount to approximately 1,8 milliards of Euro per annum. The total added value resulting from this investment  will amount to 23,8 milliards of Euro and the labour market effect is seen as securing the jobs of 380.465 persons (expressed in full-time employment equivalents).

The largest savings potential identified are the ones of the building refurbishment sector and of the transportation sector. The Federal Government in its Government Programme for the 24th legislation period shares this opinion.
By thermal refurbishment of all post-war residential buildings in need of it, as much as 23 Petajoule can be saved until the year 2020. Thermal refurbishment of service buildings can bring another 11 Petajoule, if until 2020 25% of all buildings hosting private services and 25% of all local, regional and national administration buildings will be renovated. Additional measures related to the construction of new buildings and in the heating systems sector can bring another 41 Petajoule of savings of energy used for room heating.

The savings potential of the transport sector is also very high, with necessary investment costs for the period until 2020 being significantly higher than in the buildings sphere. The savings potential of the transport sector amounts to approximately 40 Petajoule according to a study of Prof. Hausberger from the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz).