Specialist contributions to rezoning for battery storage and grid facilities
Rezoning for battery storage in Austria: specialist contributions with all technical evidence in line with the applicable legal requirements.
With the expansion of renewable energy and the decentralisation of energy supply, demand for land for battery storage is rising. For such land, a rezoning procedure (Umwidmung) generally has to be completed. We prepare the specialist contributions to rezoning that comply with the legal requirements and contain all necessary technical evidence.
Whether and how rezoning is required is governed by the spatial planning acts of the federal states. Before the actual plant procedure, the site needs suitable land zoning; if it is missing, the permit is refused, and there is no legal entitlement to a particular zoning. A battery storage system counts as a structure at the very least, because its construction requires structural engineering knowledge, for example for the foundations; in some circumstances it is even classified as a building. The logic is illustrated by the example of Upper Austria: for stand-alone storage with no connection to a wind or photovoltaic plant, building land zonings come into consideration, such as commercial areas, industrial areas or corresponding special areas; the required zoning must be determined in the individual case on the basis of spatial planning law and the local land-use plan. The plant must fit the area category, since mixed building areas tolerate only businesses that are not significantly disturbing. Noise, fire protection and traffic thus become an issue already at the zoning stage. Depending on the type and size of the project, sectoral plans of the federation or the province can rule out a site designation in the land-use plan; they are only shown there for information.
The case is different for storage as an ancillary facility, and Upper Austria shows the system here too. Whether storage is permissible as an ancillary facility on a zoning for wind power or photovoltaics depends on the specific zoning and the requirements of provincial law; if it is dimensioned larger, a supplementary zoning may be needed. Whether a separate zoning is required beyond that, for example for an ancillary facility of a substation, must be examined on the basis of provincial law and the plant configuration. The municipality where the site is located is responsible; the provincial supervisory authority approves the land-use plan. Some federal states allow wind power, photovoltaics and storage only in specially designated zones; if the site lies in such a suitability zone, this speaks in favour of its suitability but does not replace the assessment in the respective procedure. Nevertheless, expert reports are required, for example on nature conservation, landscape, water, electrical engineering, fire protection, building construction and human medicine. Typical details in the documents are power, storage capacity, built-up area and the distance to the nearest neighbours. The Renewable Energy Expansion Acceleration Act (Erneuerbaren-Ausbau-Beschleunigungsgesetz), promulgated in July 2026 and already partly in force, provides for a concentrated permitting procedure for energy facilities and also affects grid infrastructure. Acceleration areas, in which key environmental and siting issues are already taken into account at planning level, go back to the EU directive RED III; whether and where they are designated depends on the current legal position.
Our specialists support you through all phases of the rezoning process: from the first analysis through technical documentation to the final coordination with authorities and project partners. We collect the data basis ourselves, and the reports are technically sound and robust. We then take over the specialist support for the rezoning procedure for storage and grid. The planning also includes the nature conservation specialist contribution, the civil engineering concept and the sound emission measurement, which can be used to substantiate noise-relevant assumptions for the area.
