Nicole Weinhold
What would have to change fundamentally so that wind power projects can be implemented faster and with less risk?
Michael Rolshoven: I would like to mention two approaches here: Firstly, the case law on exclusion planning at community level and regional planning is, as has been criticized many times, far too narrow and sometimes petty. To give another example: When regional plans, as in Brandenburg, make two percent of the state’s area available for the use of wind power, it is difficult to understand if the case law is still caught up in the question of whether substantial space has been created for the use of wind power. The narrower the jurisprudence interprets legal requirements, the less it is possible for a municipality or a regional planning association to prepare a new plan without weighing up the interests of the jurisprudence. This is especially true because the expansion of wind power in local councils and regional assemblies is still controversial and majorities have to be found.
And secondly?
Michael Rolshoven: Second, the federal legislature must consider how it can facilitate and accelerate the designation of wind areas at the level of building planning law. An approach such as can be read in the current wind power decree for Hesse, which will probably come into force in a few weeks, appears helpful here. There one assumes the total energy demand in Hesse and the question arises as to how the energy industry can switch to renewable energies by 2035. Central is the designation of at least two percent of the country’s area for wind power use. The regional planning communities in Hesse are then expressly instructed to provide appropriate space contingents.
What has to happen
Michael Rolshoven: It seems urgently necessary that, as it were, from a bird’s eye view – with the support of the federal legislature – for example, a rule presumption is legally stipulated that, for example, if two percent or more of the planned area is designated, there is a rule assumption that regional planning is free of weighing errors. Brandenburg is a rather sobering example: There are currently – incidentally, not only municipalities, but also wind farm project developers – with reference to the detailed case law of the Federal Administrative Court, increasingly by some higher administrative courts, against the wind regional plans of the more recent times. From their point of view, the state legislature in Brandenburg has pulled the emergency brake and imposed a wind power moratorium if regional planning falls to court.
Similar to Schleswig-Holstein?
Michael Rolshoven: Yes. The model for this was Schleswig-Holstein, which has been blocked by such a statutory moratorium since 2015. Even if there are exceptional decisions and therefore always approvals. In Brandenburg, all this only leads to considerable delays in numerous ongoing wind power projects at best, but in the worst case to the permanent prevention of further wind power projects urgently needed in terms of the energy transition on land.
Michael Rolshoven will give a lecture on “Regional planning, land use planning and development plans for wind projects” on December 8th and 9th at a web seminar organized by the German Wind Energy Association. More information here.
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