UMWELTPRÜFUNG FÜR DIE „TEILFORTSCHREIBUNG ERNEUERBARE ENERGIEN“ DES REG
Client:
Leipzig-West Saxony Regional Planning Association
Duration:
11/2023 – 12/2024
Project Team:
TU Dresden (Prof. Dr. C. Schmidt, Chair of Landscape Planning)
Project Description:
The new legal regulations enacted in 2022 and 2023 to ensure energy security and achieve climate protection goals have resulted not only in extensive changes to the planning of wind turbines but also to the Strategic Environmental Assessment required for such projects. For example, Section 6 of the WindBG (enacted on March 3, 2023) stipulates that for wind turbines “located in an area designated for them for which a strategic environmental assessment has been conducted, an environmental impact assessment and a species protection assessment pursuant to the provisions of Section 44(1) of the Federal Nature Conservation Act shall be waived.” This means that, at the permitting and licensing level, key environmental assessments based on the EU Emergency Regulation are waived provided that a Strategic Environmental Assessment has been conducted at the higher-level regional planning level. This inevitably places an even greater responsibility on the strategic environmental assessment conducted at the higher-level regional planning stage.
For this reason alone, the strategic environmental assessment to be conducted for the upcoming “Partial Update on Renewable Energies” of the regional plan for the Leipzig-Western Saxony region pursuant to Section 8(1) ROG in conjunction with Section 2( 2 of the Saxon Regional Planning Act (SächsLPlG) cannot be conducted using the same methodology as that applied to the current regional plan. In addition, the amendment to Section 249 of the Federal Building Code (BauGB) in 2022 abolished the “planning reservation.” There has thus been a shift from conclusive planning to positive planning, which no longer needs to be comprehensive and no longer requires a distinction between hard and soft exclusion zones. This changes not only the entire planning methodology for designating wind energy areas but also, inevitably, the methodology of the accompanying environmental assessment. Developing this methodology is part of the research project.
Objectives of the research project:
- In accordance with § 3 UVPG, identification, description, and assessment of the anticipated significant impacts of the regional plan on the environment and on the protected resources specified in § 8 ROG as the basis for effective environmental precaution in accordance with applicable laws
- Focus on planning-based management of wind energy use, including the determination of the necessary land contribution value for the Chemnitz region, taking into account, among other factors, height restrictions and rotor-out planning
- A regionally tailored selection of bird and bat species sensitive to wind energy, as well as other species relevant to the assessment where applicable, and the definition of species-specific local and assessment areas, followed by a GIS-based identification of population centers for all species under consideration
- Comprehensive assessment of the importance and sensitivity of special nature conservation areas (LSG)areas in the region with respect to wind turbines, with the goal of zoning and designating areas where spatial sensitivity to wind turbines is very high and where the construction of new wind turbines would therefore be incompatible with the conservation objectives of the protected area
Project team members:
© Sven Ellger
wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin
NameMs Mary Meier M. Sc. (in Elternzeit)
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© Sven Ellger/TUD
wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
NameMr Philipp Herrmann M.Sc.
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