EEffG & CSRD: Energy Data for Austria

Two regulations are pushing Austrian companies to collect energy data they have never systematically tracked. The EEffG (Bundes-Energieeffizienzgesetz, Austria's Energy Efficiency Act) requires large companies to document energy consumption across all carriers: electricity, gas, district heating, and more. The CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) adds a second layer: verified energy disclosures in annual sustainability reports.

Both regulations require measured, verifiable energy data. Estimates and spreadsheet approximations no longer suffice.

This article explains what each regulation demands, who is affected, and where smart meter electricity data fits into the picture.

EEffG: Energy audits and the Standardized Short Report

The Bundes-Energieeffizienzgesetz (EEffG), comprehensively revised in 2023 (BGBl. I Nr. 59/2023), is Austria's implementation of the EU Energy Efficiency Directive. It affects approximately 2,000 large enterprises in Austria.

Who must comply

A company is classified as "large" under the EEffG if it exceeds either of two thresholds:

• More than 249 employees, or
• Both annual revenue exceeding €50 million and a balance sheet exceeding €43 million

Companies with ownership stakes above 50% must calculate these thresholds at the group level; all affiliated enterprises with an Austrian headquarters count toward the consolidated figures (§41 Abs. 2-3).

What is required

Obligated companies must either conduct an external energy audit at least every four years, or implement a recognized management system (ISO 50001, ISO 14001, or EMAS). In both cases, they must submit a Standardisierter Kurzbericht (Standardized Short Report) to E-Control via their electronic reporting platform (§43 EEffG).

The Kurzbericht requires:

• Total energy consumption for all energy carriers used, including electricity, gas, district heating, oil, and any other source, reported as gross, net, and transferred energy in kWh per year
• Disaggregation across three areas: buildings (including heated and cooled floor area), production processes, and transport
• Energy performance indicators (e.g., kWh/m² per year) with a four-year trend comparison
• Efficiency measures, both implemented and planned, with quantified annual savings potential in kWh and estimated investment costs
• Waste heat potentials

One requirement deserves emphasis: the underlying data must be "aktuelle, gemessene und belegbare Daten", meaning current, measured, and verifiable (Anhang 1 zu §42). This is the legal standard against which audit quality is assessed.

Deadlines and penalties

The Standardisierter Kurzbericht must be submitted by November 30 of the year following the audit or management system documentation. The audit cycle repeats every four years.

Non-compliance carries fines of up to €100,000 for group consolidation violations, and up to €20,000 for inaccurate reports or missed submissions (§68 EEffG). E-Control may grant a cure period before imposing sanctions.

CSRD: Sustainability reporting comes to Austria

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), EU Directive 2022/2464, requires companies to include detailed sustainability disclosures in their annual management reports. Austria transposed the CSRD into national law through the Nachhaltigkeitsberichtsgesetz (NaBeG), which passed the Nationalrat on January 21, 2026 and entered into force on February 19, 2026.

The Omnibus shift: Who is actually in scope?

If you have been tracking CSRD developments, you may have planned for the original thresholds: companies with more than 250 employees and €50 million in turnover. That scope has changed significantly.

The EU's Omnibus I Directive, published in the Official Journal on February 26, 2026, raised the mandatory thresholds:

The impact is substantial: roughly 80% of companies that were originally expected to fall under mandatory CSRD are now exempt. In Austria, approximately 120 companies (Wave 1) are already reporting. The revised Wave 2 will add those exceeding both the 1,000-employee and €450 million turnover thresholds, a considerably smaller group.

Companies below the new thresholds can still voluntarily opt in to CSRD reporting. The NaBeG also includes a practical concession: for the first three years, sanctions for content-related errors apply only if a correction request is ignored.

What energy data does CSRD require?

The relevant standard is ESRS E1-5 (Energy consumption and mix), part of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards for climate change. It requires:

• Total energy consumption in MWh, disaggregated by source type: fossil, nuclear, and renewable
• For renewable sources: further breakdown into fuel consumption, purchased electricity and heating/cooling from renewable sources, and self-generated renewable energy
• For companies in high-impact sectors (NACE A-H, L): additional disaggregation of fossil sources into coal, oil, natural gas, and purchased electricity from fossil sources

ESRS E1-5 does not explicitly require per-building or per-site breakdowns. However, the related GHG emissions disclosure (ESRS E1-6) demands Scope 2 calculations using both location-based and market-based methods. In practice, this means companies need to know their electricity consumption per site or region to calculate accurate emissions.

Reports are subject to external assurance: limited assurance initially, with a transition to reasonable assurance planned by 2028. Auditors will expect measured consumption data.

Where electricity data fits

Both regulations require energy consumption data across all energy carriers. Electricity is one essential piece of a larger picture that includes gas, district heating, transport fuel, and more. For background on how Austrian smart meter data works, see our complete guide.

What smart meter electricity data provides

For compliance, the value of smart meter data comes down to reliability, automation, and scale.

• Metered data from the grid operator. This is the definitive record of electricity consumption at each connection, directly satisfying the EEffG's "measured and verifiable" standard.
• Automated, continuous collection. Data flows daily without manual effort. When the Kurzbericht deadline arrives or the CSRD auditor asks, you have a complete dataset ready.
• Coverage across all Austrian grid operators. A company with sites in multiple grid areas gets all data in one consistent format, instead of downloading XLSX files from a dozen different portals.
• Multi-year continuity. The EEffG requires four-year trend comparisons of energy performance indicators. Automated collection builds this baseline from day one.

Smart meters also record consumption in 15-minute intervals, which can help energy auditors identify savings opportunities such as load patterns, off-hours consumption, and peak loads. For the reports themselves, however, the annual kWh totals are what matters. The practical question is whether you can produce those totals reliably, from all your meters, when the deadline comes.

What it does not cover

Electricity is one energy carrier. Both EEffG and CSRD also require:

• Gas consumption, typically from gas meter readings or utility invoices
• District heating and cooling, from the district heating provider
• Transport energy, fuel consumption for vehicle fleets
• Building metadata, floor areas, usage categories, and heating systems (for EEffG Kurzbericht building disaggregation)
• GHG emission calculations for Scope 1, 2, and 3 (CSRD only). Electricity data feeds Scope 2, but Scope 1 and 3 require separate data sources.

No single system covers all of this. Electricity, gas, heating, and transport data each come from different sources. The practical challenge is assembling them into one coherent dataset for your Kurzbericht or CSRD disclosure.

The practical problem: Getting electricity data at scale

For many companies, electricity is the hardest energy carrier to collect systematically. Gas comes from one or two suppliers; you call them, you get the numbers. District heating, same thing. But electricity meters at a company with 40 sites might be spread across a dozen different grid operators, each with their own portal, data format, and response time.

The options for accessing Austrian smart meter data:

• Grid operator web portals. Manual download as XLSX, limited to around 50 meters per portal. Workable for a few meters, but doing this for 80 meters across 10 grid operators every year adds up fast.
• Build your own EDA integration. Specialized communication software, server infrastructure, 3–6 months of development. Viable at very large scale, but a significant capital project. The full journey of data from meter to system illustrates what is involved.
• Managed data services. Handle grid operator complexity, consent management, and data normalization, delivering clean data via API, webhook, or CSV.

For a company preparing an EEffG audit or CSRD disclosure, the regulation tells you that you need the data. The question is how to collect it reliably from dozens of meters across multiple grid operators, year after year, without turning it into a manual project every audit cycle.

Checklist: Preparing your energy data

Whether you are facing an EEffG audit cycle or preparing for CSRD, these steps apply:

1. Determine which regulations apply. EEffG: more than 249 employees or both €50M revenue and €43M balance sheet? CSRD (post-Omnibus): more than 1,000 employees and €450M turnover? Check group-level consolidation for both.
2. Inventory your energy carriers and metering points. List every site, every meter, every energy source. For electricity, collect the Zählpunktnummer (33-character meter ID) for each connection.
3. Establish automated data collection. Manual data requests work for a handful of meters. For 20, 50, or 200 electricity connections across multiple grid operators, you need a pipeline that delivers data continuously, so the numbers are there when you need them.
4. Assign responsibility. An Energiebeauftragter, ESG manager, or external energy consultant who owns the data collection process and knows the deadlines.
5. Calendar the deadlines. EEffG Kurzbericht: November 30. CSRD: aligned with your annual report filing. Start data collection well in advance; each electricity meter requires a consent process that takes 1–5 business days to complete.

How energiedaten.at helps with the electricity piece

energiedaten.at provides one specific part of the compliance data puzzle: automated electricity consumption data from Austrian smart meters.

Add your meter numbers, your meter holders approve data sharing on their grid operator's portal, and consumption data starts flowing daily, from all Austrian grid operators, normalized into one clean format, delivered via API, webhooks, or CSV.

When your next Kurzbericht is due or your CSRD auditor asks for electricity consumption records, the data is already there: metered, time-stamped, and traceable to the grid operator.

It does not replace your gas data, your district heating records, or your GHG emission calculations. But for the electricity piece, especially across many meters, sites, and grid operators, it removes the manual effort and gives you a reliable, automated data foundation.

From €29/month with a 14-day free trial.