Wind farm preliminary design: site, grid, nature, construction and more
Wind farm preliminary design: we clarify site suitability, grid connection, nature conservation and infrastructure and create the basis for the permit.
The preliminary design builds on the pre-project development and prepares the permitting design. In this phase, we make your wind energy project concrete step by step: we classify the site and assess its suitability, carry out detailed nature conservation surveys on birds, bats, reptiles, amphibians and insects, and determine the sound immissions at the relevant immission points. This data is the basis for an optimised wind farm layout. The result is a design that weighs energy yield, distances, noise, shadow and nature conservation against each other and makes this weighing transparent. For every wind turbine in the park, it is not only the individual site that counts, but the interaction across the whole wind farm.
Site classification follows the principle of the standard IEC 61400-1: a wind turbine is designed for a wind class that results from the reference wind speed and the turbulence category. The conditions at the site must not exceed these assumptions. For turbulence, the wake of neighbouring turbines also counts. The layout therefore feeds back into the suitability assessment: the same wind turbine may have to be assessed differently in a tight grid than at a single site. Because of this interaction, layout, noise and suitability are considered together and not ticked off one after the other. In addition, there is the assessment of sound immissions: it is carried out at the relevant immission points, i.e. the nearest sensitive uses, and depends on the chosen turbine position. Positioning likewise influences shadow flicker and the effect on the landscape. A design that considers these variables together early on is easier to defend in the procedure.
The technical concepts are developed in parallel. The grid concept includes the grid enquiry and coordination with the grid operator. The civil engineering concept plans roads, cable routes and construction, foundation and temporary logistics areas. Wind and photovoltaics complement each other over the course of the year, since wind power delivers more in winter and PV in summer. If a wind farm is to be extended later with photovoltaics or storage, the grid connection can be shared. In practice, an additional agreement to the grid access contract then usually governs the shared use, and the agreed total feed-in capacity must not be exceeded. How much power is actually present at the connection point is clarified by the load profile analysis for hybrid parks.
Procedural questions also belong to the preliminary design. Wind turbines should preferably be built on land designated for this in planning law. From certain thresholds for total capacity or number of turbines, an environmental impact assessment (EIA) under the UVP-G 2000 must be carried out; in particularly sensitive areas, lower thresholds apply. Depending on the federal state, separate zoning and assessment steps are added. We therefore prepare specialist contributions on noise, shadow, landscape and forestry for the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and thus prepare your project for the procedure. The results of the preliminary design then feed into the permitting design and form the basis for the application documents.
