Germany’s Wind Power Expansion Stalls On The Roads, Transport Permit Needed

Germany’s wind power expansion is facing an unexpected roadblock: builders need permits to transport the heavy turbines down the country’s roads, and they are waiting months to get them.

With a backlog of more than 15,000 applications for approvals, companies say their projects are heavily delayed, with the costs of prolonged warehousing for steel tower segments, generators and blades running into the millions.

“Assuming nothing changes, it could cost 115 million euros extra by the end of the year,” Felix Rehwald, a spokesperson for wind turbine manufacturer Enercon, said.

Transport permits are needed to drive heavy loads over bridges and highways. Sometimes structures and road signs need dismantling, and police escorts are needed for some loads, while others can only be sent at night.

“It is currently one of the most pressing challenges for us and our competitors,” Rehwald added.

Delays in securing permits were costing the company thousands of euros per day, Rehwald said, adding that bottlenecks could only get tighter as wind construction ramps up towards the middle of next year.

Germany aims to obtain 80% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, 115 gigawatts of which should come from onshore wind, but a lack of transport permits endanger that goal.

Nordex, a global leader in wind turbine manufacturing, told Reuters that parking spots for its lorries are too scarce and that the cost of permits has risen as much as tenfold, with a spokesperson talking of “massive delays and significant costs.”

The cost of applications had jumped to more than 1,000 euros per permit in 2021 from 100 euros, Nordex said. But permits were so rigid in their scope that companies often made multiple applications to cover for different eventualities.

“I can’t apply for a transport permit and tomorrow say: ‘I’ll drive the green truck instead of the red’, because a new permit is needed,” Kai Westphal, a regional head of transport at Wind turbine maker Vestas, told Reuters.

Some 150 permits are needed on average for transporting a wind turbine, 100 to 120 for cranes, and 60 for turbine components, a study by engineering association VDMA published last year showed.

Without a single law regulating heavy load transport, each federal state requires different documents, the study added.