Wind farm Bruchhagen-Nendorf:

Approval procedure completed after four years

Since the beginning of October 2019, it is official: The immission control permit for the construction of 14 new wind turbines in the Bruchhagen-Nendorf wind farm has been issued. With the decision, a procedure lasting more than four years came to an end. Still in December 2019, the participation in the tender procedure of the Federal Network Agency took place.

The freshly approved wind farm Bruchhagen (Flecken Steyerberg)-Nendorf (municipality of Stolzenau / Samtgemeinde Mittelweser) is an extension to the already existing wind farm Mensinghausen (Flecken Uchte). As project developer, WestWind ENERGY has re-planned and applied for the project several times in the past years. Different issues such as the regional planning of the district of Nienburg, the urban land use planning of the municipalities as well as the Renewable Energies Act (EEG), which has been changed since 2017, led to the exceptionally long application phase.

In the course of the procedure, extensive so-called spatial use mappings for the bird species Montagu’s Harrier, Eagle Owl & Ortolan had to be created. For the faunistic inventories, WestWind ENERGY cooperated as always with renowned experts in this project, such as the Working Group for Nature Conservation and Landscape Management (www.agnl.de) and the Working Group for Regional Structural and Environmental Research GmbH (www.arsu.de).

Also, ten out of 14 wind turbines were opposed to the concerns of the German Armed Forces. In order to avoid radar interference, it will be possible in the future for the Bundeswehr to shut down the wind turbines as needed in an emergency via the control room at the Wunstorf air base if radar interference is to be expected.  

Irrespective of the complex approval procedure, WestWind ENERGY has succeeded in realizing the Bruchhagen-Nendorf wind farm, an area secured by WestWind ENERGY and designated in the now ineffective regional development plan (RROP 2015). This makes WestWind ENERGY one of the few project developers to have obtained building rights for all specifically secured suitability areas in the RROP 2015 of the district of Nienburg.

The approved 14 Enercon E-126 EP3 wind turbines will each have an output of up to 4 megawatts. The park will generate approximately 131,000,000 kWh/year after its construction! This results in an annual CO2 reduction of approx. 87,000 t! This corresponds to the CO2 footprint of approx. 11,000 inhabitants (at approx. 8 t per person per year).

For the Bruchhagen-Nendorf wind farm, a tendering procedure is required by the 2017 reformed EEG (Renewable Energy Sources Act). In the tendering process on 01 December 2019, the project was awarded a contract.

As a full-service provider, WestWind ENERGY has been committed to the expansion of onshore wind energy for more than 20 years. The combination of ecology and economy – value creation for the region and lived climate and nature protection – has been the first goal of our work ever since.
EEG reform from 2017

Wind energy, solar energy and biomass plants approved after January 1, 2017, must participate in tenders if they exceed 750 kW of installed capacity.
The new EEG replaces the legal right to a subsidy through an auction procedure. Only those who are awarded a contract under this procedure will be subsidized. The bidding procedure is carried out by the Federal Network Agency.
As a rule, those who bid to produce electricity with biogas, wind or solar using the lowest state subsidy are most likely to win the EEG subsidy. The tenders and the considerable technological progress made in recent years have meant that the production of electricity from wind and sun is now the cheapest form of energy. Thus, fossil fuels will be displaced in the future, especially economically. Sector coupling (coupling with hydrogen production, e-mobility, heating sector, etc.), new forms of storage and further technology developments will ensure the base load capability of an energy system based on 90 to 100 percent renewable energies.