As of: March 12, 2024, 7:03 p.m
By: Andreas Steppan
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Only a few areas are even suitable for wind power expansion in the Oberland (symbolic image).
© Imago/Wolfgang Maria Weber
A maximum of 3.9 percent of the Oberland is – with a lot of good will – suitable for wind turbines.
A regional imbalance is likely to arise when designating priority areas.
Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen - The map of the areas where wind turbines could one day be located in the Oberland is becoming increasingly full of holes.
At the meeting of the Region 17 planning committee on Tuesday, regional representative Cornelia Drexl presented a “consolidated search area backdrop”.
Result: As things stand, there is still around 3.9 percent of the Oberland area left that would theoretically be suitable as a priority area for wind turbines.
“We have a huge Gordian knot ahead of us”: Difficulties in expanding wind power in the Oberland
“We have a huge Gordian knot in front of us,” said Tölz district administrator and planning association chairman Josef Niedermaier.
“All of us here have the political will to advance wind power in our region.
At the same time, there are many legal regulations that make wind power impossible in many places.
That makes it anything but easy to find a way.”
All of us here have the political will to advance wind power in our region.
At the same time, there are many legal regulations that make wind power impossible in many places.
This makes it anything but easy to find a way.
Josef Niedermaier, Chairman of the Oberland Region Planning Association
Background: According to the Bavarian State Development Plan (LEP), all regions in the Free State must designate 1.1 percent of their area as priority area for wind energy by the end of 2027.
By 2032, Bavaria will have to designate a total of 1.8 percent of the state's area as wind energy areas.
Given these requirements, Region 17 – consisting of the districts of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, Miesbach, Weilheim-Schongau and Garmisch-Partenkirchen – has decided to adapt its regional plan.
Golden eagle breeding areas are an exclusion criterion for wind turbines
But if you take into account where there is enough wind and where there are no exclusion criteria such as settlements, nature reserves, roads, lakes or even airfields, only 8.7 percent of the area remains for potential wind turbine locations.
That was the status as of summer 2023.
The blue areas on the map show where wind power would be possible in the Oberland after all the strict exclusion criteria have been applied.
The potential priority areas are concentrated in the west of the Weilheim-Schongau district and the northeast of the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district.
In the south of the Oberland, however, hardly anything works - and if it did, it would be associated with considerable difficulties.
© Oberland Region Planning Association
Since then, the regional planning team has checked the areas according to additional criteria.
For example, it was examined where “bird species at risk of collision” live.
For red kites, black kites, peregrine falcons, honey buzzards, white storks and eagle owls, over 25 or even over 50 percent of Bavaria's breeding territories are located in the Oberland.
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That alone is not an exclusion criterion; in the end, one could weigh it up in individual cases against the “overwhelming interest” in the expansion of wind power.
But: The main breeding areas here for golden eagles, tree falcons and marsh harriers make the construction of wind turbines absolutely impossible because they are “species in a poor state of conservation”.
Consideration for bat biotopes
The habitats of grouse also represent “very high resistance,” as it is called in official German, especially capercaillie and black grouse.
The next corners on the map of potential wind turbine areas are crumbling because they are meadow breeding areas, biotopes or the habitat of bats.
And areas with steep slopes with a gradient of over 30 percent are generally unsuitable for building wind turbines.
A radius of five kilometers around the German Weather Service Hohenpeißenberg station is also out of the question.
The Altenstadt airborne and transport school and the Lechfeld military airport also impose restrictions.
The bottom line, according to Drexl, is that there are now 3.9 percent of the region's area left "on which further examination to designate them as priority areas is even possible."
If you then subtract areas where wind turbines would not be completely impossible, but would be “very conflict-ridden”, you only have 2.3 percent left.
Wind power is hardly possible in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district
However, this mass offers far too little scope compared to the targets of 1.1 and 1.8 percent respectively - you would have to take everything that is possible, so to speak.
Drexl's conclusion: "We cannot continue to work on such a basis." So areas that are problematic but cannot be completely ruled out must also be taken into account
Most of the areas that appear reasonably suitable for wind power are now concentrated in the northeast of the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district and in the west of the Weilheim-Schongau district.
In the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district, only 1.05 percent of the area is remote.
With this “consolidated search area backdrop”, the planning team wants to initially approach the municipalities informally from April, for example as part of mayoral meetings.
The municipal concerns will then be incorporated into the further review before a concrete proposal for the designation of priority areas is created at the end of the year.
According to Drexl's schedule, the updated regional plan could take effect in the first quarter of 2026.
Mayor from the south of the Oberland skeptical
In the end, the members of the planning committee unanimously approved this further approach.
However, there had been a lively discussion beforehand.
Elisabeth Koch, mayor of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, was outraged: “Wind turbines are actually impossible in our community.
It would be a question of honesty not to look at the areas any further.”
Her Lenggries counterpart Stefan Klaffenbacher made a similar statement: “No wind turbines will be installed on the Brauneck or the Benediktenwand.
Continuing to discuss this is purely a job creation measure.”
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Even though no investor will ever plan a wind turbine in the mountain area, it “makes sense to continue working on the regional plan,” said Murnau Mayor Rolf Beuting.
Because, as Niedermaier had previously noted: “If we do not designate any areas, then wind power is generally considered privileged under building law.” And that, according to Böbinger Mayor Peter Erhard, would then be “Wild West conditions”.
Erhard expressed the hope that a future regional plan with many small priority areas would open up the opportunity to build a decentralized wind power supply, ideally with systems “in citizen hands”.
Weilheim district administrator Andrea Jochner-Weiß was clearly in favor of continuing.
“We know that we have this obligation, and we are fighting to move forward with wind power.”
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