Dena proposes twelve supplementary measures for the Wind on Land Act

Source: Energy & Management Powernews, June 21, 2022

With twelve measures, more electricity could be generated and used from onshore wind power, suggests the German Energy Agency (Dena). They should be included in the new law.

An important accelerator for wind power should be the wind on land law presented by the Federal Cabinet. The German Energy Agency (Dena) proposes twelve measures for addition, which should be included in the law. According to the German government, at least 80% of electricity consumption should come from renewable energies by 2030. To achieve this, the pace of expansion throughout Germany must increase significantly to double the installed wind power capacity. The Dena proposals are realizable in the short term.

With the current processes and deadlines for the realization of new projects, the expansion target of the federal government can not be achieved, warns Dena. Up to the ready for occupancy delivery of wind parks at present on the average seven to eight years pass. The Wind-an-Land-Gesetz (Wind on Land Act) is intended to significantly simplify planning and approval procedures and stipulates that all federal states set aside two percent of their land for wind power. In addition, the weighing of protected goods in species protection is to be reorganized.

Quickly implementable measures needed

Philipp Heilmaier, head of Dena's Future of Energy Supply division, warned, "But it will take some time before these really fundamental innovations take effect." Therefore, everything should be tried to accelerate with further, short-term measures, the wind energy expansion. "Our impulse paper shows how this can succeed," Heilmeier touted. The document "12plus - Twelve supplementary measures for the wind on land law", describes approaches that could be implemented with comparatively little administrative effort.

The proposals include, for example, the streamlining of permits for the complex transport of wind turbines or the elimination of bottlenecks in the value chain through the targeted development of infrastructure (such as special cranes) via special funding programs. Dena also proposes optimizing approval and implementation processes. Type-specific approval would give more freedom in the implementation of wind farms than today's type-specific approval. The time window for the construction field clearance should be extended and a completeness fiction of the application documents should apply.

Loaner staff for staff shortages

Loaner staff could be hired to counter staff shortages at authorities and courts, Dena added. Tendering and electricity marketing should be adapted and allow direct marketing models. Feed-in management should be optimized for energy use, it said, and it should be possible to subsequently increase the output of turbines through software updates. A special surcharge for conversion areas could help counter the lack of suitable areas. In view of the currently rising prices, raw material prices should also be indexed when participating in tenders and resilient value chains should be created, the proposal said.

"Considered together, the twelve measures achieve a process acceleration of several months," Heilmeier said. Especially with regard to Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine and the resulting energy market crisis, he said, this has become even more urgent. "The rapid expansion of wind energy will help us to reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuels more quickly and thus improve Germany's energy security," the Dena division head appealed.

The Impulse Paper "12 Measures for Onshore Wind" from Dena is available on the Internet.

Author: Susanne Harmsen