It takes on average 42 months to get a building consent for a wind farm in the EU, the latest EU-funded research project, Wind Barriers, reveals.

The findings were published by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), which coordinated the project.

The time needed for onshore wind farm planning applications ranges across the EU from less than 10 months to well over 50.

The reasons for this enormous gap vary, but include the high number of authorities to communicate with and the lack of clear administrative guidelines for developers.

Finland, with just over 8 months needed to get a permit to build a wind farm ranks first, followed by Austria (10 months), Romania (15 months), and Italy (18 months). Bulgaria ranks 6th with 23 months. The country where the patience of a wind developer is most challenged is Portugal, where over 58 months are needed on average to get consent, followed by Spain (57 months), Greece (50 months) and Poland (43 months).

The Wind Barriers project further investigated the number of authorities that need to be contacted in each country in order to obtain permission to build onshore. Denmark has the fewest authorities to contact (5), whereas Greece has the most - 41. Bulgaria is again 6th with 21 such authorities.

But there isn’t necessarily a direct correlation between the length of time it takes to get permission and the number of authorities that need to be contacted, the data shows. Spain, for example, is one of the countries with the least number of authorities that need to be contacted (9), but is one of the slowest, taking an average of over 57 months to get permission to build a wind farm.

“If Europe is serious about reaching 20% renewable by 2020 some member states need to streamline their consent procedures for wind farms. There are a number of actions all Member States could take: creating a one stop shop approach for contacting the different authorities, writing clear guidelines for developers, and introducing better and streamlined spatial planning procedures,” Justin Wilkes, EWEA Policy Director, is quoted as saying

The experience in the offshore sector is, so far, more positive. The average time to get the green light is 18 months, much lower than onshore.

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