Controversial project: New start for wind power on the Hoher Root

The Wiesbaden cooperation between SPD, Greens, Left and Volt is making a new attempt to build wind turbines to generate electricity for the state capital.

During the most recent meeting of the environmental committee, the representatives of the cooperation decided that the magistrate should examine whether the planned and controversial wind farm on the Hoher Wurzel could still be operated economically in the event of approval and whether there were opportunities to work with other municipalities to build wind turbines in to establish Wiesbaden's neighborhood.

The cooperation factions cite an area northeast of the Platte as an example, and when asked, Konstanze Küpper (Die Grünen) said on Wednesday that there was also a priority area for wind power west of the Frauenstein district.

According to Küpper, the area to the north-east of the Platte is an area that lies within the boundaries of the Taunus municipality of Niedernhausen, while the area west of Frauenstein is located in the Rheingau.

"The cooperation with Wiesbaden's neighboring communities makes sense in terms of energy policy," said city councilor and committee chairman Ronny Maritzen, adding: "We need more wind power." According to Küpper, one reason why Wiesbaden's neighbors are of great importance when it comes to wind power is that there are City has no further priority areas for wind turbines.

Proceedings at the Hessian Administrative Court

In addition, the dispute over the wind turbines on the Hoherroot has still not been decided.

After the Darmstadt regional council refused approval for the wind farm planned by Taunuswind GmbH there in 2016, the subsidiary of ESWE Supply went to the Wiesbaden administrative court and appealed against the decision.

In 2020, the court upheld the lawsuit but allowed the appeal.

The regional council and the town of Taunusstein, on whose district some of the wind turbines should have been, made use of this.

Since then, the procedure has been with the Hessian Administrative Court in Kassel.

A decision by the judges in Kassel is not expected in the foreseeable future.

"There is currently no appointment in sight," said Martin Sander, spokesman for the Administrative Court, on Wednesday.

In August of this year, the responsible 9th Senate invited the association "Naturerbe Taunus" as a recognized environmental association to the appointment procedure.

According to Sander, this means that the club now has the right to comment and submit an application.

As an example, Sander named an application to overturn the contested judgment of the Wiesbaden Administrative Court.

However, the Senate has not yet received a statement from the association.

In the event that Taunuswind GmbH would like to build more powerful systems instead of the Enercon E-115 wind turbines with a nominal output of three megawatts applied for in 2015, the application would have to be adjusted accordingly, according to Sander.

Then some new documents would have to be submitted to the regional council for examination.

"Such an adjustment of an application for approval is possible in principle, but involves renewed testing," Sander clarified.

Approval applied for by Taunuswind

Should the administrative court reject the appeal of the state of Hesse and thus confirm the judgment of the Wiesbaden administrative court, the Darmstadt regional council would be obliged to grant the Taunuswind the requested approval without further examination, the spokesman continued.

In this case, he made it clear, no new application had to be made to the regional council.

A crucial question is therefore whether the ESWE subsidiary can still operate the wind farm economically with the wind turbines applied for around seven years ago, because there are now more powerful and also significantly higher systems on the market.

The magistrate should now examine this in cooperation with ESWE supply.

The representatives of the CDU voted in favor of the report request for cooperation, but gave up when it came to the question of new areas for wind turbines.

André Weck said that such a topic should only be tackled once the future of the wind farm on the Hoheroot has been clarified.

Faissal Wardak (FOAG/ULW/BIG) wanted to know the ecological consequences of installing wind turbines on the Hoherroot.

Sylvia Schob (FDP) wanted to see the application supplemented by the question of what climatic effects can be expected in Wiesbaden.

Both amendments were rejected by the cooperation majority.