Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Wind power is booming despite the approval traffic jam!

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Wind power is booming despite the approval traffic jam!

Wöbbelin, Deutschland - in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania something happens in terms of wind power! In the first half of 2023, ten new wind turbines with a total output of 56.5 megawatts were installed here. This corresponds to an impressive increase of 45.4 percent compared to the previous year. A total of 1,853 wind turbines are now active in the country, which together do 3,852 megawatts, which makes up 5.9 percent of the total wind power stock in Germany, such as stern.de reported.

Although the numbers seem positive, there are still major challenges. While other federal states such as North Rhine-Westphalia with 117 new facilities and an increase in performance of 97.8 percent shine, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has one of the longest approval periods for wind power projects in Germany with a whopping 45 months. The national average is 18 months. One reason for this is the multitude of legal changes that have been increasing in recent years, reports ndr.de .

recovery requirement for the energy transition

The country has the potential for a comprehensive expansion of wind and solar parks, but the permits last longer than in other regions. There is a clear need to catch up, especially since many approval procedures are long due to environmental protection requirements and the requirement of additional reports. The regional association of renewable energies informs that the complex processes often act as bottleneck. Minister of Economic Affairs Reinhard Meyer (SPD) clearly mentioned this: "We have to significantly speed up the procedures," says Meyer.

An example of the difficulties is the wind farm in Wöbbelin, whose approval has been long in coming. Despite hardly any resistance, the municipality has sighted that the process has been significantly delayed due to additional information and exams, especially in species protection. Even when the approval was finally granted, the planned wind turbines were already outdated, which led to a new application for more modern models. The investors of natural electricity thus remains a loss of around 500,000 euros in project development, such as the Couption shows.

Federal Government moves according to

The federal government has tackled the boredom in the approval process with a draft law. On July 24, 2024, a new law was decided to accelerate the expansion of wind energy and solar projects, as well as the associated construction and spatial planning. The regulations from the EU directive on renewable energies are intended to help increase the proportion of renewable energies in the gross consumption of energy to at least 42.5 percent. This initiative could be an advantage for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in order to reduce the depressing approval times. In addition, special acceleration areas for wind and solar parks are in discussion in order to simplify the entire process, such as "https://www.pv-magazine.de/2024/24/bundes- Gleitungen- Fuer-fuer-Photovoltaik-windkraft-und-spert/" target = "_ blank"> pv-magazine.de reported.

A clear progress, but not the end of the way yet! Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has the opportunity to become a pioneer in the area of renewable energies. But as is so often the case in life: patience is a virtue, but it slowly becomes too much patience if the goal is a climate -neutral country until 2040. It remains to be seen whether the new measures are fruitful and whether the wind blows in the right direction!