Irish Regions Office Website

May 02, 2010

Wind farm planning permissions

An EU-funded project coordinated by the European Wind Energy Association has found that the time wind farm developers must wait to receive planning permission differs very significantly from one EU Member State to another. The findings of 'Wind Barriers' reveal that it takes a wind farm application an average of three and a half years to win full administrative approval in Europe (one and a half years for offshore applications). This varies from a prompt eight months in Finland to almost 5 years in Portugal. Ireland's figure is 33.5 months - a lower mid-table ranking in terms of efficiency.

Curiously the number of organisations which need to be statutorily consulted and involved in the process is only a partial indicator of the time spans involved. This number ranges from just 5 on average in Denmark (taking 32 months) to 41 in Greece (50 months). In fact despite their highly efficient systems, Finnish and Austrian applications must pass via more than 30 different agencies prior to approval while in Portugal, as in Ireland, only 14 organisations are involved.
The report conclude that the huge lack of coherence between national systems is hampering the EU's overall potential to meet its goal of producing 20% of energy from renewable sources by 2020. It recommends the need for clearer guidelines and more strategic and streamlined approval mechanisms. It should be noted that the study relates only to administrative processes and does not examine the impact of public acceptance in delaying matters.

Further details

Posted by iroronan at May 2, 2010 10:29 AM