Status: 05/02/2022 10:10 a.m
According to a survey, the vast majority of federal states are lagging far behind the government’s goals when it comes to expanding wind power. Only Schleswig-Holstein is on target. The problem: not enough space, too much bureaucracy.
The expansion of wind energy is lagging far behind the targets set by the federal government in spring 2022. Economics Minister Robert Habeck wants at least two percent of the state area to be designated for the construction of climate-friendly wind turbines. Only one federal state currently achieves this target, according to a survey by the dpa news agency.
The front runner is therefore Schleswig-Holstein with around two percent. Hesse follows with 1.9 percent and Saarland with 1.82 percent – but both countries are already below the mark specified by the government. At the bottom of the list of non-city states are Saxony (0.3) and Baden-Württemberg (0.2).
Despite the fact that the initial situation is not comparable to that of the non-city states, there was also a big difference in the case of the city states. While Bremen still has around 1.0 percent, Hamburg has only 0.23 percent of the area designated for wind energy. In the Land Use Plan of the State of Berlin, there are no explicitly designated areas for wind energy.
Bavaria wants to relax distance rules
The majority of the states are between these extreme values: These include Brandenburg (1.4 percent), densely populated North Rhine-Westphalia (1.2 percent), Saxony-Anhalt (1.08 percent), Rhineland-Palatinate (1.01) and Thuringia (0.4). Lower Saxony pointed out that 2.1 percent would be reached by 2030.
The largest state in terms of area, Bavaria, which is often heavily criticized nationwide for its strict 10H distance rule, still comes in at 0.69 percent. The 10H rule states that the distance from the windmill to the nearest building must be ten times the height of the windmill. As a result, the expansion of wind power there has practically come to a standstill. After heavy criticism, however, the rule is now to be softened – for example on motorways or in commercial areas.
Habeck: Two percent target in the Basic Law
The Economics Ministry sees the problem of a lack of space as the greatest obstacle to the expansion of wind energy. By the end of 2020, only around 0.8 percent of the total area was reported nationwide, but only around 0.5 percent of this was actually available for use – because, among other things, minimum distances in a number of federal states and legal obstacles to approval significantly reduce the potential. “In order to make progress here, we will enshrine the goal of two percent of the state’s land area for onshore wind energy in law,” said the Federal Ministry.
It is unclear how exactly the two percent target will be anchored and whether the federal government will overturn strict distance rules like in Bavaria via a federal law. Regulations on faster planning and approval procedures are also expected. Also in the debate is a distribution key. A spokesman for the NRW Ministry of Economics and Energy said that such a system would have to take into account the different possibilities of the countries with regard to the natural conditions, wind speeds, the terrain relief and in particular the population density.
100 percent renewable energy by 2035
After energy prices have been rising massively for weeks as a result of the war in Ukraine, many critics of wind power – for example from business – have changed their opinions. In many places, however, the construction of wind turbines is repeatedly slowed down by protests and disputes between local residents, environmentalists and investors.
The expansion of green electricity from wind and sun is one of the central goals of the traffic light government in the federal government – to achieve climate goals and to become less dependent on fossil energies such as Russian gas. According to plans by the Federal Ministry of Economics, 80 percent of the electricity should come from renewable sources by 2030, and by 2035 it should be almost 100 percent. In 2021, according to industry information, it was around 42 percent.