The federal government wants to ensure that wind turbines can be built more quickly. Through digitalization and less bureaucracy, the approval procedures are to be shortened by months. The Bundestag has now approved the plans.
The Bundestag has given the green light for faster approvals for wind turbines and other industrial plants. The planned innovation is intended to enable certain plants, including wind turbines, to be built and converted more quickly in Germany in the future.
For this purpose, an existing law – the so-called Federal Immission Control Act – is being adapted. It affects all facilities that cause noise or can otherwise be potentially harmful to the environment. In addition to wind turbines, these also include rolling mills, foundries, waste disposal plants and plants for the production of hydrogen.
The SPD politician Daniel Rinkert was instrumental in the drafting of the new law as his parliamentary group’s rapporteur. “Today we are putting the super turbo on acceleration,” Rinkert explained in the Bundestag. The SPD MP says he believes that this will shorten procedures by an average of ten months.
digitalization should speed up approvals
The approval procedures are to be accelerated through digitalization and by shortening the necessary procedural steps. The law is also intended to support the repowering of wind turbines – i.e. the replacement of older wind turbines with new ones.
During the debate in the plenary session, several Green and SPD MPs assured that environmental standards would not be weakened by the simplified procedures. In the past, environmental associations had repeatedly warned against pushing ahead with bureaucracy reduction at the expense of environmental and nature standards.
There was some harsh criticism from the opposition. The Union criticized, among other things, that it had generally taken too long to pass the law. The Bundesrat now has to approve the change in the law.