Mayor Uwe Olt would have wished for something different for his community of Lützelbach in the Odenwald. In the 7500-inhabitant municipality on the border with Bavaria there has been a wind farm with nine turbines for years. “This is our local contribution to the energy transition.” Since 2012 in South Hesse, the search for “priority areas” for wind power plants based on a catalog of criteria that applies equally to all municipalities has been the focus of regional attention on Lützelbach. After the “Substantive Partial Plan Renewable Energies” came into force in March 2020, Lützelbach has one of the largest wind priority areas in southern Hesse with 650 hectares. But the neighboring Bavarian town of Wörth also wants to use the hills in the direction of Lützelbach, on which the wind blows so magnificently, and approve five more systems."Then wind turbines could turn here on more than 1000 hectares," says SPD politician Olt. "1000 hectares - that's a word."

Mechthild Harting

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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    But the community is slowly feeling surrounded.

    Does it now have to take over the expansion of wind energy on its own, while other municipalities refuse to do so?

    In the Frankfurt / Rhine-Main conurbation, only 1,300 hectares are earmarked for wind energy.

    This Friday, Lützelbach is once again on the agenda of the South Hesse regional assembly.

    The 99 local politicians must finally decide what will become of 0.8 percent of the area of ​​southern Hesse.

    Planners and regional politicians had declared the areas to be “white areas” and thus excluded them from the partial plan process that was completed in 2020.

    The task was to finally complete most of the plan after almost ten years.

    At that time, the heads of those involved had long been buzzing when they only thought of the exclusion criteria to be considered.

    "The goal is almost reached"

    The specifications for species protection proved to be particularly difficult, after all, red kites, black storks and pug bats sometimes change their roosts.

    "Soft" criteria such as the impairment of the landscape, the protection of historical monuments and the question of when a municipality is too "encompassed" by wind turbines challenged planners and politicians.

    In spring 2020, Economics Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (The Greens) announced after the cabinet had approved the partial plan that 10,200 hectares or 1.4 percent of the area of ​​southern Hesse was earmarked for wind energy.

    This does not correspond to the goal of the state government announced in 2011 after the Fukushima disaster of earmarking two percent of the area of ​​Hesse for rotors in order to provide substantial support for wind energy.

    The minister calculated, however, that together with the administrative districts of North and Central Hesse - Central Hesse in particular exceeded the target with 2.2 percent of the area - “now 1.85 percent of the area is Hesse's priority area. "This means that the goal of dedicating two percent of the country's area to wind power has almost been achieved," said the Minister.