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Obstacles prevent Europe from escaping Russian gas

Europe has planned to stop buying natural gas from Russia within the next five years by installing wind turbines and solar panels on a large scale to accelerate the transition to renewable energy. But the reality of implementing these ambitious projects is not what European leaders expect.

In Germany, the European country that buys the most Russian gas, wildlife groups regularly protest against wind farms, extending the approval period for these projects to more than five years. In Italy, Europe’s second-biggest consumer of Russian gas, local authorities have rejected 90% of wind power projects.

Licensing obstacles have slowed the deployment of solar farms that provide consumer electricity across the continent. A series of tough regulations and public outcry in Poland, France and Hungary have prevented large areas of these countries from developing wind power.

“The difference between the political calculation and what is actually going on in the effort to launch renewable energy projects has never been greater,” said Steffen Lackmann, project manager at WestfalenWIND, a developer German wind power development, said. “When the conflict in Ukraine broke out at the end of February, I thought the approval process would be faster… Actually, nothing has changed.”

Such obstacles threaten to undermine Europe’s political will to break away from Russian fossil fuels quickly in order to punish Moscow for its military campaign in Ukraine.

The European Union (EU) is proposing to triple the amount of wind power generated by the bloc’s solar panels by 2030. By then, 45% of the bloc’s energy will be generated from renewable sources. create.

To this end, EU officials are pushing the governments of the 27 member states to shorten the approval time of renewable energy projects to less than two years by streamlining the licensing process. They also call for the creation of special zones where renewable energy projects can be approved in less than a year. Leaders of EU countries also pledged to accelerate the implementation of renewable energy projects.

However, they are facing a powerful coalition of interests seeking to put the brakes on renewable energy, as wind turbines and solar panels flood the continent.

Local authorities are increasingly concerned that wind power stations and solar farms will damage the landscape of Europe in the long run. Wildlife groups say a series of previous projects failed to properly account for their impact on birds and bats.

“There are areas where renewable energy projects have made poor use of the land and you’re seeing a wave of protest,” said Jonathan Bonadio, senior policy adviser at SolarPower Europe, the advocacy group main lobby of the solar industry, said.

The company WestfalenWIND has been fighting for six years to upgrade a wind energy park in the northwest region of Germany with modern turbines with three times the capacity. But standing in their way is the NABU, one of the country’s most influential environmental groups.

The local government initially rejected WestfalenWIND’s plan after the NABU complained that the upgrade would threaten local birds such as red hawks.

Authorities then approved the project but placed a major restriction on the company: The new turbines could only operate at night, from March to October. Even so, NABU filed a lawsuit to stop it. it.

Now, after reaching an agreement with NABU, the company has begun building wind turbines, but must install special cameras that automatically stop the blades if they detect threatened birds approaching.

“That doesn’t match the political ambition that renewable energy has a superior public interest and serves national security,” said Lackmann, WestfalenWIND’s project manager.

Katharina Stucke, a consultant at NABU, says Germany’s decades of data on the operation of wind farms show that their installation has reduced the number of local red hawks, although She acknowledges that the number of these birds nationwide has remained stable.

According to her, projects to upgrade wind power parks need to be carefully considered because modern wind towers are taller and propellers are much longer than in the past, posing a danger to birds.

“We can’t just look at the climate crisis and forget about the biodiversity crisis,” Stucke said.

In France, regulations prohibiting the installation of wind turbines near military radars and aircraft flight paths make them impossible to deploy in large areas of the country. New regulations aimed at assessing their impact on the landscape have also slowed implementation.

In Poland and Hungary, a law passed in 2016 makes it nearly impossible to build new wind parks in both countries.

Italian public authorities have blocked hundreds of renewable energy projects in recent years. According to a study by the lobby group Elettricità Futura, renewable energy projects in Italy take an average of seven years to get the green light.

According to Irex, a consultancy in the energy sector, although the Italian government says it wants to quickly promote renewable energy production, more than 70% of the 264 solar and wind energy projects submitted for approval. Approved last year is still pending.

Even if companies get approval from local authorities, their projects still need to go through the Italian Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for approving projects that affect the landscape. Nearly 600 renewable energy projects are under review by the department.

“Despite rising energy prices and the need to get rid of dependence on Russian gas, the government has not taken the special steps necessary to speed up the approval process,” emphasized Agostino Re Rebaudengo, president of Elettricità Futura.





Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in Leningrad region, Russia, July 2021.  Photo: TASS.

Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in Leningrad region, Russia, July 2021. Image: TASS.

Most projects blocked by local governments are settled in courts, where companies are often awarded favorable rulings. However, this process usually takes several years, and the technology by then may have been different. Companies must apply for a re-licensing if the technical plan changes.

Companies that want to reduce the number of turbines on their wind farm by installing new, more powerful turbines also have to go through a lengthy approval process.

Offshore wind power projects are no exception. Recently, a project in the Puglia region, in the south of Italy, started generating electricity. This is Italy’s first offshore wind farm and the government considers it a testament to the success of the renewable energy industry. However, this project took 14 years from approval to inauguration.

According to Simone Togni, president of ANEV, an association representing Italian wind power companies, only about 10% of wind power projects submitted to the government of this country are approved and built, of which, most have to downsize if it wants to be passed.

“We’re only about 20 percent of what we should be doing if we want to have any chance of achieving the EU’s renewable energy targets,” he stressed.

Vu Hoang (Follow WSJ)

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