Turbines in commercial zones needed to achieve Germany’s wind power target - industry
Clean Energy Wire
Industrial and commercial zones in urban areas should serve as wind turbine locations in order to achieve the target of two percent land area for renewable power technology, German wind power industry group BWE has said. The lobby group called for changes to building and land use laws that facilitate construction of the turbines in “special use areas” that could greatly contribute to reaching the expansion targets, especially in the three city states of Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen. “We have to unlock all potential areas if the government’s expansion targets are to be achieved,” BWE head Hermann Albers said. Construction in industrial and commercial zones would already be possible but for now this remains an exception, Albers said. “Land use regulation therefore should explicitly state that renewable energy installations can be built in these zones,” he argued. Moreover, there should be no height restrictions for turbines as this would reduce the potential for energy production at these locations.
The government recently prepared legislation that compels each of Germany’s 16 states to provide a fixed amount of about two percent of land surface for wind power production, depending on geographic circumstances of the individual states. Berlin’s city government already said it would look into options for maximising the number of turbines on its relatively small city state territory.
