operational cooperation via the relevant Regional Security Coordinators could also be considered, to enable TSO collaboration on investments in addition to planning.
Furthermore, the processes on identifying candidates for joint financing of cross-border offshore wind power projects under the Connecting Europe Facility and network planning could be coordinated.
The purpose of this task is to:
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Describe the current authorisation and permitting regimes for offshore wind and transmission investments in the BEMIP member states,›
Identify barriers related to planning, authorisation and permitting for offshore wind and transmission investments, including maritime spatial planning, and›
Evaluate and make recommendations on options for reducing the barriers identified, both through national measures and cross-border coordination.The work under Task 5 has consisted mainly of a review of the existing literature and public documentation. We have also carried out our own analysis to establish a set of criteria for a suitable planning and authorisation regime, which we have compared with our findings on the national and regional systems in place.
The main deliverable with respect to the description of current authorisation and permitting regimes is attached in the form of country factsheets (see Appendix E). There is also a factsheet on relevant EU regulation. We refer to these factsheets for further details.
Table 9-1 Criteria for an efficient planning and authorisation regime
Criterion Key issues
Maritime spatial planning incl. data management
Existence of binding maritime spatial plans Data coverage, availability and quality Licensing procedures Clearly defined procedures
Conflict management Stakeholder involvement Regional cooperation Coverage of relevant areas
Sufficient mandate and powers
On maritime spatial planning, we consider it important that the countries have the necessary framework in place to meet the requirements of the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive, or that they have a clear path towards implementing the directive. Under this criterion we also considered the Member States’ data management practices regarding offshore wind and related maritime data. With respect to data management, we considered whether the necessary data exists, whether it is easily available to stakeholders and the quality of the data. Necessary data comprises, among other things, geospatial information on wind conditions, offshore grid plans, maritime spatial plans, shipping, bathymetry, oceanography, pollution and environmental parameters, geology, biology and the marine environment.
On licensing, we consider it important that the processes involved are clearly defined. The type and number of permits required should be clear to investors, and there should be efficient coordination to ensure that these processes are not delayed unnecessarily. Furthermore, the procedures for appeals should be transparent and have clear deadlines. These requirements are in line with the RED II directive.55 It is also highly recommended that any outright restrictions on the availability of areas for offshore wind deployment (such as military considerations) be established as early as possible in the process to avoid unnecessary work on projects that cannot be realised. Under this heading, we therefore also consider conflict management mechanisms and stakeholder involvement.
On regional cooperation, we consider it important that there are regional bodies or organisations that support cooperation in areas vital for efficient planning and authorisation [of offshore wind power and related grid infrastructures]. While the powers of these bodies may be limited by national or EU law, appropriate fora should at least exist where planning issues can be discussed and possibly also resolved. Areas where cooperation is beneficial include network planning and operations (incl. options for a Baltic Sea offshore grid), data management, maritime spatial planning, and environmental issues.
9.1.2 Findings
In this section we set out our assessment of country performance along the different dimensions, based on our review of the national frameworks as documented in the factsheets.
55 Directive (EU) 2018/2001.
Maritime spatial planning and data management
We find that there are significant differences between the BEMIP countries regarding their progress on implementing maritime spatial plans consistent with the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive.56 Some countries have comprehensive plans in place or those are at an advanced stage (for instance draft consultation plans), while others have plans that cover only a portion of the relevant geographic area. However, it is assumed that all BEMIP countries will comply with the Spatial Planning Directive, which requires that plans are in place no later than 31 March 2021, and that plans will therefore be put in place in the coming years. The table below gives an overview of the status in the BEMIP member countries.
Table 9-2 Summary of Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) status in the BEMIP countries Country MSP status
Denmark › No MSP yet, but sectoral plans in existence will give input to MSP
› Act on maritime spatial planning has been adopted
Estonia57 › No MSP yet, but two pilot projects have been carried out and will be included in national MSP
› MSP based on Planning Act and Government orders
Finland › Draft MSP process underway, three regional MSPs will be developed by regional councils
› One regional land use plan includes regional territorial sea area
› MSP is covered by the Land Use and Building Act, but MSPs are non-binding Germany › Federal MSPs for Germany’s EEZs (Exclusive Economic Zones) in the North and
Baltic Seas and regional (federal state level) plans for the territorial sea areas as part of the respective coastal federal states' comprehensive spatial plans
› MSP is covered by the Federal Spatial Planning Act Latvia › No MSP in place, draft process underway
› MSPs are covered by Spatial Development Planning Law
Lithuania › No separate MSP, but maritime territories are part of a comprehensive plan at the national level
› MSP is covered by the Law on Territorial Planning Poland › Only pilot MSP in existence, drafting process underway
› MSP regulated by the Act on sea areas of the Republic of Poland and the maritime administration
Sweden › MSPs at advanced stage of drafting, consultation ongoing with final proposals expected end of 2019
› MSPs are regulated by the Swedish Environmental Code and the Planning and Building Act
Source: www.msp-platform.eu, country factsheets
We have not assessed the quality of the plans in detail, but the Swedish draft plans submitted in 2018 would seem to be an example of plans that would enable efficient deployment of offshore wind within a comprehensive planning framework that includes all relevant stakeholders. The draft plans explicitly identify areas to be used for offshore wind power generation. We also find the German system to be comprehensive and well-suited to the needs of offshore development as it explicitly identifies priority areas for offshore wind within a multi- layered planning framework due to Germany’s federal structure and the resultant division of responsibility between the federal and state governments.
56 Directive (EU) 2014/89.
57 With regard to the Hiiumaa wind park, the developer will continue with the environmental assessment. The results will be published in the end of August 2019.
On data management, several shortcomings can be observed at the national level. Lack of data, data being fragmented and spread across many providers and poor data quality are expected to act as a barrier, or at least increase costs, for potential investors and to reduce transparency in general.
The German approach to data management is particularly interesting and might serve as a possible best practice for other countries or for the development of a regional Baltic Sea data management model. The planning authority, the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH), maintains GeoSeaPortal, which provides a central online access point for the relevant geographic data. BSH also maintains a database on the current and planned use of the marine environment. We also note that Denmark is working to develop a Danish Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure to promote the sharing and coordination of data between the Danish authorities.
Licensing procedures
On licensing procedures, the use of one-stop shops is considered best practice and is required by the new Renewable Energy Directive. One-stop shop can be a highly efficient way of organising the licensing process. However, it must be noted that the creation of a one-stop shop is not sufficient in itself, since the legislation and procedures underlying the planning process can still be inefficient and excessively complex. From a general perspective, some of the issues that can persist, despite the use of one-stop shops include:
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Complex and not clearly defined processes,›
Ineffective stakeholder engagement that does not identify major objections sufficiently early in the process, and›
Long or repetitive appeal processes that increase investor uncertainty beyond what is justified by the need to ensure effective stakeholder consultation.National governance structures may make the implementation of one-stop shop ineffective, if complexity and partly overlapping and parallel processes are not addressed.
The table below gives an overview of the main characteristics of the licensing systems in the BEMIP countries.
Table 9-3 Overview of the offshore wind licensing systems in the BEMIP countries Country Licensing procedure
Denmark › One-stop shop coordinated by the Danish Energy Agency which also issues the necessary licences Estonia › Several permits necessary, handled in distinct, but parallel processes
Finland › Several permits necessary, including municipal-level building permit
Germany › Different regimes depending on whether the installation is inside territorial waters (state procedure) or outside but within the EEZ (federal procedure)
› Federal procedure involves the BSH as the main planning authority
Latvia › Licensing framework in place, but not tested in practice and no clear mechanism for coordinating processes across ministries
Lithuania › Planning procedures in place, but very difficult to develop offshore wind in practice as there is no legislation in place to authorise developers to survey the seabed
› Planned tendering process would be a way to address this Poland › Authorisation regime in place, process is not clear
Country Licensing procedure
Sweden › Process depends on whether or not proposed windfarm is within territorial waters
› Separate licences covering the different aspects necessary Source: Country factsheets, Baltic InteGrid Project
As an example of the potential challenges involved, the Baltic InteGrid project studied the case of the Hiiuma windpark in Estonia.58 As of March 2018, 144 months (12 years) had passed since the submission of the first licence application for the special use of water. This permit must be obtained before other procedures can be completed, limiting the scope to run processes in parallel. Furthermore, appeals are possible at each step of the process, and can lengthen the procedure by several years in total. While this example is probably an extreme case, it highlights the potential costs and risks arising from inefficient licensing procedures.
Regional cooperation
There are three main cooperative bodies, in addition to BEMIP itself, in which all BEMIP member states participate:
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HELCOM – the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission, which governs the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area (Helsinki Convention). HELCOM acts, amongst other things, as a policy maker, by developing environmental objectives and actions, as an information provider on the Baltic marine environment and as a supervisory body.›
VASAB – the Committee on Spatial Planning and Development in the Baltic Sea. VASAB is an intergovernmental organisation that prepares policy options for the territorial development of the Baltic Sea Region and provides a forum for the exchange of know-how on spatial planning and development between the Baltic Sea countries. It provides recommendations on policy measures and promotes methodology development and cooperation projects.›
BASREC – Baltic Sea Region Energy Cooperation. The format of the BASREC group was revised in 2015. Previously, BASREC covered issues of energy and energy-related climate policy in the Baltic Sea Region through a ministerial process, including regular ministerial meetings and a presidency/secretariat that supported BASREC on an ongoing basis. The initiative to propose a meeting on an energy issue of common interest can still be taken by any member, but there are no longer any regular meetings.In addition, the transmission system operators (TSOs) in the Baltic Sea region cooperate through a number of fora, including the ENTSO-E regional groups for network planning and three different Regional Security Coordinators (RSCs) to support security of supply. There is a separate ENTSO-E region comprising the Baltic Sea region that includes all BEMIP member states. The three RSCs are: the Baltic RSC covering Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; the Nordic RSC covering Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, and TSCNET (Transmission System Operator (TSO) Security Coordination Network) Services covering, among others, all the German TSOs, Poland and Denmark.
58 Baltic InteGrid (2018): Establishing an offshore meshed grid. Policy and regulatory aspects and barriers in the Baltic Sea Region. Chapter 4.4 includes a review of the Hiiuma case.
While there is significant regional cooperation on environmental and spatial planning issues, TSO-level cooperation on offshore grid planning in the Baltic Sea is not organised in any standing group that could be tasked with considering the network requirements of offshore wind development and potential solutions at a regional level. Ad-hoc projects like Baltic InteGrid exist to explore this space, but direct TSO collaboration would eventually be required to realise any proposed solution. ENTSO-E’s role in facilitating cooperation on network planning could conceivably fill some of the gaps, but the development of offshore wind and related grid infrastructure is only one of the many objectives of the existing ENTSO-E structures.
Operational network cooperation is also spread across three different RSCs. As such, Baltic offshore grid cooperation may not be adequately covered by these existing processes. A greater focus on Baltic Sea regional grid planning could therefore be warranted.