German wind developers wait 25 months for a permit — and the office that decides is short-staffed too.
Germany wants 115 gigawatts of onshore wind running by 2030 and has roughly 64 today. Every new turbine has to clear a federal pollution-and-noise licence under the Bundes-Immissionsschutzgesetz (the federal immission-control law). According to the federal wind agency that tracked the procedure from 2011 to 2022, the licence step alone now takes 25 months — almost twice the 14 months it took before 2018. Two labour pools are short: planning engineers on the developer side, case workers on the regulator side.
01The pain
Germany wants 115 gigawatts of onshore wind — turbines on land, not at sea — by 2030. It has 64. Every new turbine must clear a federal pollution-and-noise licence under the Bundes-Immissionsschutzgesetz (BImSchG, Germany's federal immission-control law). The Fachagentur Wind und Solar (the federal wind agency) tracked the procedure from 2011 to 2022. The licence step now takes 25 months, almost twice the 14 months before 2018.1
The completeness check by the Genehmigungsbehörde (the state permit office that reads the dossier) climbed from 9 to 18 months. Add four years of pre-development before the developer even files, and the average wind farm needs 50 months from first paperwork to first kilowatt-hour.2 Two labour pools are short. Developers cannot find enough planning engineers to write the bat surveys, noise models and grid studies a BImSchG dossier needs. The Regierungspräsidien (state-level case-work authorities) cannot find enough case workers to read them.3
BDEW (the German energy industry association) wants outside project managers, allowed under §2a 9. BImSchV (a 2024 rule letting private contractors draft permit decisions), to help clear the queue.4 The 2024 BImSchG-Novelle (the law's 2024 revision) wrote the role in. Uptake is slow.5 Each year a 30-megawatt project sits in the queue, it strands €200,000 to €1 million in surveys already paid, land options signed, tender awards won with a build deadline the project will miss.
Further reading
- 1 fachagentur-wind-solar.de — "Genehmigung von Windenergieanlagen an Land": the Fachagentur Wind und Solar (the federal wind and solar agency) page summarising the BImSchG procedure and the 2011-to-2022 cohort study that produced the 25-month and 18-month figures (German): fachagentur-wind-solar.de
- 2 bdew.de — "Längere Verfahrenslaufzeiten von Windenergieprojekten": Bundesverband der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft (BDEW, the German energy industry association) brief on lengthening procedure runtimes including the ~50-month total figure (German): bdew.de
- 3 enbw.com — "Genehmigungsverfahren Windkraftanlage": EnBW (one of Germany's four large utilities) plain-language walkthrough of what a BImSchG dossier contains — bat surveys, noise models, grid-connection studies — explaining why both sides need scarce specialist staff (German): enbw.com
- 4 bdew.de — "Bundestag beschließt BImSchG-Novelle": BDEW announcement on the 2024 amendment to the federal immission-control law that introduced §2a 9. BImSchV outside project managers (German): bdew.de
- 5 stiftung-umweltenergierecht.de — "Urteil zur Windenergie: Behörden müssen sich an Verfahrensregeln halten": Stiftung Umweltenergierecht (an environmental-law foundation) commentary on a court ruling reinforcing procedural deadlines on Genehmigungsbehörden, evidencing that even after the 2024 reform, uptake of the new tools is patchy (German): stiftung-umweltenergierecht.de
02Who solves this today
Five German-market vendors that publicly market themselves as solving exactly the gap the BImSchG permit cycle opens — wind site assessment and energy-yield reports for the dossier, end-to-end environmental and permit-procedure consulting, bat-and-bird surveys, and full BImSchG-application drafting. Each homepage was checked live on the date of writing. The list is intentionally narrow.
Adjacent vendors were considered. Bosch & Partner (a long-standing wind-permit consultancy) was not catalogued because its homepage failed live verification on the date of writing (TLS certificate problem on www.bosch-partner.de). BBB Umwelttechnik (bbb-umwelt.de) and KohlerNusbaumer (kohlernusbaumer.com) returned DNS-resolution failures and so could not be verified on the date of writing. The Fachagentur Wind und Solar (the federal wind and solar agency), the BDEW (the German energy industry association) and the Regierungspräsidien (state-level case-work authorities) are referenced in section 01 as the federal data source, the trade association and the regulator respectively, not third-party solution providers. Inclusion is not endorsement; this list is a starting point for operators searching for help.
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Operators discussing this
These are real German wind-energy operators talking about this pain in their own words on the Photovoltaikforum (Germany's largest renewable-energy operator board). They are the reason this page exists.
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«Glaube wer 2026 den WKA-Ausbau nicht signifikant erhöht, der hat den Schuss nicht gehört und/oder will wirklich nicht… Realitätsverweigerung halt. Oder das Land hat halt schon wirklich genug und kann sich aufs repowering beschränken. Bayern wird übrigens bald auch noch anziehen… Genehmigungen und Auktionszuschläge zeigen das ja mittlerweile schon deutlich an.»
"I reckon anyone who doesn't significantly raise wind-turbine build-out in 2026 has not heard the shot, or really does not want to… plain reality-denial. Or the state already has enough and can limit itself to repowering. Bavaria will pick up soon too… permits and tender awards are clearly showing this now."
Neuigkeiten zur Windenergie (page 1048) · Photovoltaikforum — running operator news thread opened 14 January 2022; reached page 1048 in April 2026; 5 distinct Betreiber-flagged operators on the sampled page; operator dialogue on Genehmigungen, repowering and Auktionszuschläge directly evidences the permit-cycle pain.
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«In 2025 wurde bei mir in der Umgebung (NRW) einiges an Windrädern hochgezogen, davor die Jahre auf jeden Fall um einiges weniger… Jetzt frage ich mich nur wie das rein Platztechnisch noch gehen soll das zu toppen. Weil durch die 1000m Abstandsregel wird das jetzt schon echt dünn mit Standorten… Eine Position wo vor 2 Jahren schonmal Plökke eingeschlagen wurden ist wohl hinfällig.»
"In 2025 a fair number of turbines went up in my area (North Rhine-Westphalia), the years before were definitely a lot less… Now I just wonder how this can still be topped from a pure-space angle. Because of the 1000-metre setback rule, sites are getting really thin already… A spot where stakes were driven in two years ago is probably void now."
Same thread (page 1048) · Photovoltaikforum — distinct NRW operator describing the second-order squeeze: every site that loses its setback eligibility has to start the BImSchG dossier over from zero, restarting the 25-month clock.