German firm files lawsuit after 4-year wait for wind approvals

German wind and solar developer UKA Umweltgerechte Kraftanlagen has filed a lawsuit with a court in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as a state authority has been delaying a decision on the approval applications for 12 wind energy projects for years.

The Higher Administrative Court of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (OVG Greifswald) will hear three of these cases on September 5, UKA said in a statement to Renewables Now.

The cases concern the Herzberg-Granzin I and II, as well as Passow wind projects which are planned to be built in the northern German state. The three wind parks will consist of a total of 17 turbines with individual capacities ranging from 4.2 MW to 5.6 MW. When operational, they could supply clean energy to about 85,000 households.

UKA and several partners have already completed the planning of these projects and have been waiting for approval by the State Office for Agriculture and Environment (StALU) Westmecklenburg since 2019. The approval authority is legally obliged to make decisions on approval applications of this kind within seven months but the deadline has already been exceeded by about four years.

The lawsuit is the last resort for the project developer. Gabriele Necke, Head of the Approval Department at UKA Nord, commented that the company sees no other option than to go to court. "However, we would prefer to resolve the approval backlog through united efforts. We continue to seek dialogue with authorities and politics," Necke said.

UKA, based in Meissen, eastern Germany, has about 1.8 GW of onshore wind projects across Germany waiting for approval. The UKA Group's current project pipeline for wind and solar projects exceeds 14 GW.

Lengthy approval procedures are a major hurdle to onshore wind expansion in Germany. The federal government has made a number of changes in an effort to accelerate deployment and this type of decisions must be issued within up to seven months. However, the national average duration is 24 months, with Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ranking second to last at 32.8 months, ahead of Hesse.

The rollout of onshore wind energy is speeding up with new installations growing 60% to 1.56 GW in the first half of 2023, but it is still far below the mark needed to achieve 115 GW of installed capacity in 2030, which puts the target at risk.

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