The Federal Administrative Court has overturned the night-time operating restrictions for three wind turbines in Brandenburg. The ancillary provisions on noise protection could not be justified as the three wind turbines are located on areas outside the impact area and in the immediate vicinity of a wind farm with 24 partly erected and partly authorised turbines. Therefore, there is already an existing noise pollution.

In its decision, the Federal Administrative Court clarified practical questions regarding irrelevance criteria and the impact area in the TA Lärm (case reference: 7 C 4.24 of 23 January 2025). In the opinion of the Federal Administrative Court, the impact area of a plant under immission control law is conclusively and bindingly defined in the TA Lärm and is limited to “areas on which the noise emitted by the plant causes a rating level that is less than 10 dB(A) below the immission guide value applicable to this area”. As the residential development in need of protection in the present case is located outside the impact areas of the wind turbines, no special case assessment is necessary for the additional pollution caused by the three other wind turbines. The court argued that their additional exposure - viewed in isolation - would be below the judgement value of the TA Lärm.

The Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg had still taken the view that the provisions of the TA Lärm regarding the impact area did not cover such a large number of impacting installations. The Federal Administrative Court has now clarified that this is not the case.