The Münster Higher Administrative Court (OVG) considers a new regulation in the NRW State Planning Act to be null and void. According to the regulation, which has been in force since the summer, district governments may instruct the approval authorities to suspend the approval procedure for a wind turbine in individual cases if regional planning is made significantly more difficult or even impossible by the project (Section 36 (3) LPIG NRW). A project developer had filed a complaint against the suspension of the immission control approval it had applied for for a wind turbine and was successful in summary proceedings (Ref.: 22 B 727/24.AK dated 26/09/2024). In the opinion of the OVG, there was „fundamentally overwhelming evidence“ that the state law suspension provision violated a provision in the Federal Immission Control Act. It should therefore be null and void according to the conflict of laws rule in the German Basic Law, according to which federal law breaches state law. Irrespective of this, the court considered the suspension to be inadmissible in the present case, as regional planning would not be impeded at all by the planned individual plant.

Your contacts for all legal questions relating to renewable energies in our practice are the lawyers  Janko Geßner, Prof. Dr Jan Thiele and Tobias Ross and the lawyers Mareike Thiele, Josefine Wilke and Dr Janett Wölkerling.