When the fighter jets soar into the sky above Neuburg with a booming noise, the inhabitants of the Upper Bavarian town usually remain unmoved. The TV volume may be turned up a few notches, conversations continue in a firmer voice. Only when a Eurofighter breaks the sound barrier every now and then and a violent bang shakes the place does someone wince. But otherwise the noise around the military airfield, which opened in 1961, has long been part of Neuburg’s identity – admittedly less peaceful than the Danube and the castle.
What people in Neuburg don’t really want to accept is that the Bundeswehr is putting the brakes on the energy transition in the municipality. According to the will of a foundation and the city council, a wind farm with three wind turbines is to be built on a mountain at the extreme edge of the Neuburger Flur. According to Lord Mayor Bernhard Gmehling (CSU), the 550 meter high Hainberg – the highest elevation in the region – is the only place “where the operation of a wind farm would make economic sense”. 20 percent of the city’s electricity requirements could be covered by the system, it would be a massive step towards the energy transition. And a dream for every head of town hall, especially since the facility is far from any housing estate and the district office has already given the green light.
The only problem: the Bundeswehr is not playing along. The military is concerned that the wind turbines could endanger the flight safety of the fighter jets and impair radars. Because of the Nato airfield, the region around Neuburg falls under the area of military interest, in which the Bundeswehr has to examine and approve the construction of wind turbines. In Neuburg, the project failed in 2002 and 2012 due to the veto of the military, and this time one request was rejected. The rotors of the wind turbines would rise too high into the sky.
Lord Mayor Gmehling cannot fully understand the rejection, saying that the change towards renewable energies is now too important. He emphasizes that according to official calculations, the planned location in a forest northwest of the city is 10.5 kilometers from the air base in the southeast. “I’m not an expert in flight safety. But I don’t understand why a Eurofighter can’t fly around a wind turbine like that,” he says, and – “as much as I appreciate the Bundeswehr” – sends a tip in the direction of those responsible. “If three wind turbines are such a major obstacle to our air force, I wonder how our defense capability is otherwise.”
Because of the high density of military sites in Bavaria, large parts of the Free State identified in the energy atlas as a military area of interest, Conflicts between energy transition and aviation security are therefore not only evident in Neuburg. In Jesenwang, in the Fürstenfeldbruck district, there had also been debates about a planned wind turbine in recent years. Because of the proximity to the Swabian military airfield in Lechfeld, the Bundeswehr had also lodged an objection to the construction of a wind turbine there in 2020 – the plans were put on hold. But after the change of government in Berlin things got moving again and the Bundeswehr increased the minimum flight altitude after negotiations with the Ministry of Defence. The way for the windmill was suddenly free.
There is currently movement in the Ministry of Defense again, after the resignation of Christine Lambrecht, the Lower Saxony SPD man Boris Pistorius is now responsible for the Bundeswehr. His predecessor apparently did not attach too much importance to the matter during a visit to Neuburg in July. There she was presented with a resolution for the wind farm, which the city council passed with a large majority. It hadn’t helped.
Nevertheless, Neuburg’s Lord Mayor Gmehling does not want to give up. He recently wrote a letter to the members of the Landtag and Bundestag from the constituency and asked for support. He hopes to be able to increase the political pressure for the project, after all, the expansion of wind power is not only being pushed by the federal government, but also by the Bavarian state government since last year. Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) proclaimed the slogan “full tailwind for wind power in Bavaria” in December. Maybe something is still possible, the mayor hopes.
And if not? “Then we still have a lot of ideas for advancing the energy transition,” says Gmehling, speaking of the expansion of local heating, photovoltaics and electrolysis. A bit of tailwind on the way to the green city would still not hurt.