Wiesbaden (dpa/lhe) – It takes an average of two years in Hesse for a wind turbine to be approved. This emerges from the response of the Ministry of the Environment to a parliamentary question by the Left Group in the state parliament. According to this, the duration of the procedure for the 34 plants newly approved so far this year was on average 24.1 months from the time the application was submitted. According to the information, this is much faster than before: In the past 16 years, such a new approval took an average of 30.3 months.
The shortest procedure was completed in one and a half months. The longest duration of the procedure was 94 months between 2013 and 2019 at the Lauterbach wind farm in eastern Hesse, as the ministry announced. There are many reasons for long procedures. Because of the large number of authorities involved and other affected parties, it takes time for all the documents and reports to be created and compiled. When it comes to nature conservation, follow-up investigations are often necessary. Rescheduling or changing locations also takes time, for example if plots of land are not available after all.
In mid-July, 277 plants were in the approval process, as the ministry announced. Since 1998, 1,458 plants have been approved in Hesse. Between 2010 and 2021, 203 of 817 procedures were carried out with public participation.
