Effectiveness of Planning Instruments for Minimizing Spatial Conflicts of Biogas Production

The energy policy in Germany encourages an ever-greater utilization of biomass to produce biogas. But this utilization interferes on the natural resources and affects new conflicts regarding other forms of land use particularly flood prevention measures, drinking water supply and recreation. A forward-looking planning is needed to minimize these conflicts. Hence, this paper aims to derive quality and protection standards, summarized in checklists, assessing the effectiveness of different planning instruments with respect to the impact of biogas production in practice. These checklists were used in four model districts in Lower Saxony to evaluate the effectiveness of planning instruments on the regional level. The results show that the investigated Regional Planning Programmes do not contain any explicit planning statements as to the production of biomass or biogas. Specific regulations regarding potential conflict situations are mainly to be found in the respective Protected Area Regulations. However, generally the German spatial planning and sectoral planning provide options to control the production of biogas in a way that it is compatible with the majority of competing land uses.