Lithuanian energy company Ignitis wants to build a wind farm with up to 11 turbines near close to the summer capital Pärnu, but the city government is not behind the idea.
Initially, the company planned to build two wind farms in the area with a total of 28 turbines and submitted an application last spring. One wind farm was planned for the Tõstamaa district near Lake Ermistu and the other for the Audru district near the village of Jõõpre.
At the beginning of this year, the Tõstamaa plan was dropped. Ignitis development manager Sander Sorts said the plan was halted after a bird survey showed that the area is not suitable for wind farm development.
“It would have been possible to install turbines there on a reduced scale and with greater operational restrictions, which would make the project economically unreasonable and too damaging to nature. Therefore, we dropped that area,” he said.
Ignitis now wants to build a wind farm with up to 11 turbines near Jõõpre. More than 300 residential buildings would fall within the wind farm’s three-kilometer impact area, and at the beginning of the year a petition opposing the initiation of the special plan was submitted with 220 signatures.
Pärnu City Government wants to refrain from initiating the special plan, said Deputy Mayor Robert Kiviselg. He said it goes against the city’s general plan, which does not foresee wind farm developments in the area.
“Quite a large number of residents live there, and the municipality rather sees it as an area for residential development. The compensation fee that a nearby turbine would bring would in this case be just over €100,000, or around €150 per household, which would certainly not be motivating,” Kiviselg said.
The deputy mayor said the draft decision not to initiate the special plan will be submitted to the city council for a decision either in April or May.
Ignitis development manager Sorts said they will wait for the council’s decision and then decide on further steps.
“We have also done quite extensive preliminary work to find this area. First, we reviewed various restrictions, such as environmental and infrastructure-related ones, to understand whether wind farms can be built there at all and to ensure there are no conflicts between our planning area and existing plans. But understandably, there may be some mistake or something we have not seen,” he said.
If the council decides not to initiate the special plan, Sorts said the developer can either terminate the project, change its scale, or adjust the locations of the turbines within the project area.
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