Digitized Spatial Planning for Germany

Spatial planning in Germany is divided into various levels:

• Federal Level: The Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development, and Building formulates laws that regulate the spatial planning of the further planning levels (e.g., Spatial Planning Act - ROG).
• State Level: The federal states formulate statewide development plans with regulations concerning settlement structure, open space structure, and infrastructure (e.g., State Development Plan of Saxony).
• Regional Level: According to ROG, the states have created so-called planning regions, which detail the statewide development plans in "regional plans" with a higher level of detail (e.g., Regional Plan Leipzig-West Saxony).
• Municipal Level: The administrative municipalities create land use plans (preparatory land-use plans) and construction plans (binding land-use plans) to organize and implement construction projects.

These plans must align with the goals of spatial planning. According to §29 BauGB, a land-use planning procedure must be followed for most solar ground-mounted systems. This procedure checks whether a construction project aligns with the goals of spatial planning. This is why the regulations in the regional plans must be considered when planning solar ground-mounted systems.

For project developers, adhering to these regional plans is a challenge because there are 120 planning regions across Germany. The categorization of spatially relevant areas differs among regions. For example, the Regional Plan Halle designates priority areas for wine and fruit cultivation. In the Regional Plan West Mecklenburg, action areas for the red kite receive special consideration. Furthermore, the importance of designated areas for the feasibility of solar ground-mounted systems varies. According to the Regional Plan Leipzig-West Saxony, systems are not permitted in "regionally significant cold air formation areas." Apart from the Regional Association of Saarbrücken, no other planning region reaches this conclusion. Numerous environmental reports have found no or only minimal impairment of the climatic function of solar systems.

On the dvlp.energy platform, the cartographic designations of more than 80% of all regional plans are digitally accessible and linked with the textual regulations. This allows project developers to directly see if potential areas lie within the designated areas of the regional plans and check if solar systems are permissible there. This avoids unpleasant surprises in land-use planning after significant effort has already been put into project planning. Additionally, we ensure to always represent the latest regional plans. For example, the recently enacted Regional Plan Oberlausitz-Niederschlesien is already included.