16. April 2025
Photovoltaics, wind energy & co.: Who can object to renewable energy installations and what you need to know.
The implementation of an EU directive in the form of the Renewable Energy Sources Expansion Act (EAG) provides for a gradual phase-out of fossil fuels by 2030 and a so-called energy transition to renewable energies. To achieve this goal, the draft law provides for a bundle of measures ranging from investment subsidies for renewable energy to facilitating the operation of plants. The amendment to the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (UVP-G), which came into force in 2023, was also intended to make the necessary environmental impact assessments simpler and faster and thus also accelerate the construction of renewable energy plants, says Stefanie Werinos from PHH Rechtsanwälte, a specialist in environmental and public procurement law based in Graz.
However, the EAG is a federal law and spatial and building regulations are subject to the individual federal states. This explains, as Werinos says, why the expansion of renewable energy plants is progressing at different speeds in the individual federal states. Vienna, Lower Austria and Styria have introduced a PV obligation in their building regulations for new buildings and extensions, while there is no obligation in other federal states. Project sponsors who wish to build a new system on an undeveloped plot of land also require a corresponding zoning permit. Styria, for example, has created priority zones for PV areas on greenfield sites, while Carinthia has defined the conditions under which ground-mounted systems and agri-PV systems can be implemented in its PV system ordinance of 2024.
Spatial planning regulations must also be complied with when constructing wind farms; certain federal provinces provide for separate zoning for wind power plants. In addition, the EIA Act also provides for a simplification under spatial planning law for wind power plants: If supra-local wind energy spatial planning is in place, separate zoning by the municipalities is no longer required.
If the requirements under spatial planning law are not met, the planned area must first be rezoned by the responsible local authority. This takes the form of an amendment to the zoning plan and is usually a laborious and lengthy process, as the lawyer emphasizes. Anyone can raise reasoned objections within the time limit. Every well-founded objection must be discussed and taken into account as far as possible.”
Unlike ground-mounted PV systems, projects such as wind farms and hydropower plants are subject to the EIA requirement above a certain size and if significant environmental impacts are to be expected. The EIA procedure provides for a comprehensive party status, as Werinos emphasizes. In addition to neighbors, parties include citizens’ initiatives and environmental organizations, but they do not all have the same opportunities to raise objections. Environmental organizations, for example, can only raise objections regarding compliance with environmental protection regulations. Neighbors, on the other hand, could argue that the project endangers their lives or health, causes unreasonable inconvenience or threatens their rights in rem. Although the amendment to the EIA has limited the time for party status, as the lawyer says, the option to object is still widely used.
The specific procedure is as follows: When an EIA approval application is submitted to an authority, the public generally does not find out about it at first because applications are rarely complete when they are first submitted. Only when the application is complete is the authority obliged to publish all documents digitally. This also shows who can be a party to the EIA approval procedure. Specifically, objections can be raised within six weeks of this publication in the form of a written protest. Only those who make use of this period and have justified objections can still raise objections up to the oral hearing and could also appeal against a positive EIA decision. In practice, no neighbor will be able to raise an objection without the help of a lawyer, because a complex project such as hydropower often involves more than 1000 pages of documents, so you need specialist support, says Werinos. As a rule, it is citizens’ initiatives and environmental organizations that become active here.
Kleine Zeitung, 13.4.2025
Author: Daniela Bachal