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Industry leaders stress these assessments are key to public support as Germany considers streamlining permitting Offshore wind industry leaders have repeated their calls on the German government to keep environmental impact assessments for offshore wind. Skyborn Renewables head of Europe Vincent Bales said retaining EIAs would be “crucial” to new projects gaining public support, following reports earlier this year that Berlin was preparing to streamline the permitting process by not requesting the document in some circumstances. The Federal Ministry of Economics’ implementation of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED3) in February and its proposal to eliminate the need for a project-specific EIA in favour of strategic assessments in specific areas was met with significant opposition from companies and organisations including WWF, Orsted, RWE and Vattenfall. Bales told WindEnergy Hamburg: “The social part of the EIA and the public dialogue is crucial to getting accepted by the public, which is why we are keen to keep elements of the EIA. “The EIA process with public consultation is the minimum the public can expect of us, and we should keep that minimum because without public dialogue, we are missing something.” BP head of project development and stakeholder management Iris Stempfle said the developer was not looking to Berlin to streamline permitting but to tackle more significant bottlenecks in grid, production and supply chain capacity. “I don’t see permitting as hampering development. “In the EIA discussion, they wanted to cut it out to save time, but nobody wants to take shortcuts on quality. “EIAs are part of our DNA. “We see the EIA as important and see supply chain and grid connections as bigger bottlenecks.” ERM renewables partner Alex Hampson added: “The inherent value of the EIA goes beyond being a process that is required to get a permit. “The feedback it provides to the design process is not the main light of the EIA but a key element. “Hopefully people will see the broader value EIAs bring to project development.” |
