ÖVP NÖ wants to slow wind farm madness

The ÖVP wants to reduce wind farms in order not to spoil the image of the landscape. The government of Lower Austria decided to develop a new Planning Law and to keep the budget low.

460 wind farms will be put up in Lower Austria until the end of 2013. They deliver 14 percent of the power requirement. However, the expansion of wind farms is becoming increasingly controversial, Governor Erwin Pröll said.

The new Planning Law will define “venue zones” for new wind farms. In the future, new farms will only be permitted in these areas. The reason for this is not to spoil the image of the landscape.

“The progress in alternative energy shall not lead to the regression of the landscape”, the governor said. New wind farms will not be permitted until the new regulation has come into power.

Apparently, the state’s climate goals of covering 50 percent of energy demands by renewable energy sources until 2020 will not be affected by the regulation. Instead of creating new venues, existing venues of wind farms will be consolidated.

The government wants to achieve a balanced budget until 2016 and to reduce the deficit per year by 50 million Euros. According to Mr Pröll, the government started to take measures in the budget policy two years ago.

“We want to follow this path, according to the motto ‘reasonable saving’, and at the same time, we also want to invest a lot (…)”, the governor stated.

The focus should also be on the social sector and securing employment. 50 percent of the budget will be invested into the social sector and 25 percent will go to the job market.