The Hessian Administrative Court (VGH) has annulled the decisions of the South Hesse Regional Assembly, the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Regional Association and the Hessian Ministry of Economics, which had determined that the area contribution values for wind energy in Hesse had been reached (case no. 11 C 205/25.T and 11 C 633/25.T of 6 February 2026). The court thus followed the argumentation of ESWE Taunuswind GmbH, represented by DOMBERT Rechtsanwälte. The company wants to build a wind farm with ten wind turbines on the Taunuskamm.

The background to the decision is the Wind Energy Area Requirements Act, according to which the federal government obliges the federal states to make part of their area available for wind energy expansion. In Hesse, this amounts to 1.8 per cent of the state's area by the end of 2027 and 2.2 per cent by the end of 2032. In the opinion of the planning associations, this first stage has been achieved. Both the planning associations and the state assumed that it was sufficient for the 1.8 per cent to be achieved across the entire state area - but that it did not have to be achieved in each individual region. The VGH now took a different view: the state had not made use of the option to expressly define different partial area targets in the planning regions. In order to fulfil the first stage of the area contribution values, 1.8 percent of the total area should therefore also have been designated for wind energy in the South Hesse planning region. However, this did not happen: South Hesse only designated around 1.5 per cent. This in turn was not sufficient according to the judgement of the VGH Kassel.

What is also relevant beyond the state of Hesse is the news that, following the decision, the findings regarding the achievement of the area contribution values can be challenged in court in isolation - this had previously been viewed differently by many legal experts.

„We are pleased that the court has followed our reasoning,“ says Rechtsanwalt Tobias Ross, who is representing ESWE in these proceedings. The judgement is not yet final. The court has authorised an appeal to the Federal Administrative Court due to its fundamental importance.