Wind power laggard state Bavaria aims to free recent expansion boost from federal constraints

The government of long-term wind power laggard state Bavaria has said it aims to “clear the path” at the federal level to ensure its recent uptake in new wind farm projects leads to fast implementation. Half of the installations in a recent addition of more than 170 turbines licensed in the southern state so far have not received approval for guaranteed support payments by the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA), reported public broadcaster BR. 

“This means the licences are there in many cases, but construction cannot start. We have to clear the path on this at the federal level,” said Bavaria’s economy minister, Hubert Aiwanger from the Free Voters. The minister said he would also request changes to a proposal by the federal economy ministry on grid access priority for renewables. His ministry also aims to lobby Berlin for greater support of wind power in Germany’s south, where slow expansion compared to northern states is now causing “competitive disadvantages.” 

The state led by a coalition of the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Free Voters as a junior partner aims to build 1,000 new wind turbines by 2030, after neglecting and actively obstructing the technology’s expansion for many years. Recent data showed that the state shifted course and brought new licences to unprecedented levels in 2025, with processing of applications taking the shortest amount of time of all states.

According to BR, Bavaria’s government plans to launch an initiative in Germany’s Council of States (Bundesrat) to achieve a special onshore wind power auction to absorb bids that were not processed in previous oversubscribed auctions. 

The state government also published proposals on how it plans to comply with the national quota of reserving at least 1.8 percent of its area for wind power by 2032, in which the state’s poorer northern regions all get higher targets than the affluent regions in the south near the capital Munich and the Alps. This should help “reduce tension” in some regions, minister Aiwanger said, after a recent protest in southern Bavaria against a wind farm in a woodland. According to the state’s environmental office, the southern regions near the Alps also have a lower wind energy yield potential than the northern parts of the state in the Franconia region.