Berlin should scrap spatial planning privileges for wind farms, according to Brandenburg state governor Dietmar Woidke.
The politician told an industry meeting earlier this month he is planning to table an amended bill to change the policy in Germany’s Bundesrat, the upper house of Parliament.
Woidke said the state of Brandenburg has the highest density of wind turbines, leading to what he called acceptance issues.
Wind farms are currently treated as privileged structures in areas without land-use plans under German federal building code Baugesetzbuch.
Wind industry trade group BWE and the German association of energy and water industries BDEW rejected the proposal.
The 1997 regulations are one of the main factors behind the successful expansion of onshore, they added.
BWE said If the privileges were scrapped then wind farms could only be built on the basis of binding site-plans.
“We can look at Bavaria’s distance rules to understand what it means to make wind power expansion conditional to the political will and the planning power of municipalities”, said head Hermann Albers.
“In Bavaria municipalities only rarely exercise their right to allow for new wind farms. This has resulted in a slump of onshore wind expansion in the state,” he added.
The BDEW said onshore wind expansion will be immediately and badly afflicted if Brandenburg launches the initiative and succeeds.
Image: BWE
German call to curb onshore
By EBS