Planning Association Oberland: No further areas for wind turbines

Created: 06/02/2022, 1:00 p.m

By: Andreas Steppan

Wind energy in Germany is to be expanded.

The planning committee of the Oberland region is convinced that its specifications cannot contribute to this.

95 percent of the area taboo from the outset Not a single wind turbine was built in seven years © dpa

The expansion of wind power is a political goal of the federal and state governments.

In the planning association Oberland, the current targets do not see any reason to act.

Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen

– Ever since Germany wanted to become independent of Russian gas and oil, the focus has been on expanding wind power.

However, at the level of the Oberland planning region, there is no need to change the specifications of the regional plan.

The representatives of the municipalities agreed on this at the planning committee meeting on Wednesday in Bad Tölz.

The federal and state governments set targets for wind energy

The regional plan provides guidelines for the districts of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, Miesbach, Weilheim-Schongau and Garmisch-Partenkirchen where wind turbines could be located.

The federal government has now set the goal of increasing the share of renewable energies to 80 percent by 2030 and making two percent of the state's land available for wind power, reported Cornelia Drexl, regional representative at the government of Upper Bavaria.

And the Free State announced in the “Bavarian Energy Plan” that it would “activate up to two percent of the area for wind power”.

Bavaria would like to keep the controversial 10H distance rule, but soften it a bit.

According to Drexl, the Oberland Planning Association last updated the wind power chapter in the regional plan in 2015 – after four years of preparation.

Finding areas for wind turbines took place in different stages.

First, "hard taboo criteria" were applied, legal requirements that left "no room for maneuver" for wind turbines in certain areas.

"And that's a hell of a lot," commented Josef Niedermaier, chairman of the planning region and district administrator of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen.

95 percent of the Oberland area was lost in one fell swoop, including the protected "Zone C" of the Alpine region - everything south of the B 472.

The Oberland region has designated 0.24 percent of the area as a priority area for wind power

Then the planning association developed "soft" restriction criteria, as Drexl explained: certain buffers in the distances to settlement areas, landscape protection areas, meadow breeding areas and zones A and B of the Alpine region, for example.

In the case of the remaining potential, the wind frequency and, among other things, questions of species and monument protection were checked in individual cases and care was taken to ensure that there was "no asparagus in the landscape" and no "encirclement" of communities.

According to Drexl, however, the 10H rule had “no immediate effect” on the regional plan.

The result: There are exactly seven "priority areas" for wind power in the Oberland, a total of 963 hectares - 0.24 percent of the region's area.

In addition, 850 hectares (0.21 percent) of "white areas" are marked on which wind turbines would also be permitted.

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Drexl summed it up: After deducting "hard exclusion criteria", 4.8 percent of the region's area would be suitable for wind power.

Of these, 5 percent were designated as priority areas.

However, Peiting's mayor Peter Ostenrieder pointed out that wind turbines cannot even be built on the priority areas in his municipal area.

Unesco raised an objection with reference to the Wieskirche cultural heritage.

"Wind turbines for 36 megawatts could be built, we've got everything ready," he grumbled.

“It is always said that the energy transition is above everything else.

But when things get serious, everyone pulls their tails in.” Here, action must be taken at a higher political level.

"As a planning region, we can't change anything."

95 percent of the Oberland area was taboo for wind turbines from the outset

Apart from a wind turbine in Otterfing, which is to be applied for this year, not a single wind turbine has been built in the Oberland since the regional plan came into force, Drexl summed up.

Against this background, she saw “no need for change at the moment”.

"If someone wants to build a wind turbine, then we have the space for it," Niedermaier put it.

"Arithmetically, 96 wind turbines could be built." And: "We agree, we need it and we want it," said the Tölz district administrator.

But as long as there are areas in Bavaria that offer better wind conditions, investors will go there.

Ostenrieder noted that the efficiency of wind turbines has doubled in recent years.

"It was never as interesting to build a wind turbine as it is now." - "Then the investors would actually have to queue up," answered Niedermaier.

He also attributed the fact that they did not do this to the resistance from the population.

By the way: Everything from the region is now also available in our regular Bad Tölz newsletter.