Photo: Dravske elektrarne Maribor
The Government of Slovenia adopted the spatial plan on the national level for the Ojstrica wind power project. The local authority and population remain opposed, concerned about bird habitat, a water aquifer, noise and the proximity to homes.
Lengthy procedures, strict environmental rules and local opposition are keeping Slovenia at the bottom of the European Union’s wind power capacity chart in the European Union. The country hosts just three standalone wind turbines and Dravske elektrarne Maribor (DEM) has contracted the fourth one. The state-owned hydropower producer has also been struggling to implement its Ojstrica wind power project, for which the government has just approved the spatial plan on a national level.
The company intends to install three wind turbines on the slopes of the Košenjak mountain in Dravograd. It expects to commission the 19.8 MW facility in early 2028. The original plan was for eight machines, but DEM revised it to avoid the habitat of western capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus), a bird from the grouse family.
However, local citizens that formed a group opposing the project are warning of the effects of low-frequency noise. Slovenia didn’t determine a minimum distance between wind turbines and homes, they also pointed out, expressing concern over health and the environment.
Furthermore, Dravograd Mayor Anton Preksavec says drinking water reserves could be polluted. According to a hydrogeological study that municipal utility firm Dravograd published, the local shallow aquifer could be impacted, mostly from the construction and the widening of access roads. “The risk is too big,” Preksavec stressed.
Ministry denies burying its decision on its website to make it hard to find
The Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy approved on June 13 the environmental terms for Ojstrica. Representatives of the local activist initiative in Dravograd missed the complaint deadline. They accused the ministry of making the decision hard to find online and argued that they found it only three months later.
Mayor Anton Preksavec warned that a shallow aquifer could be impacted by access road construction
But the process is not over: the group appealed and even supplemented the appeal at the request of the ministry, which denied the claims.
Tea Lubej from the initiative highlighted, among the other issues, that the documentation doesn’t indicate a minimum distance and that even the owners of the land included in the project are against it. She added that she is not against wind farms but that such projects must be placed on “healthy foundations.”
DEM is part of energy utility Holding Slovenske elektrarne – HSE.
Disputes around wind farm projects in Southeastern Europe becoming more frequent
As for the rest of the region that Balkan Green Energy News covers, wind power project developers have lately been facing environmental and other hurdles in Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro. Notably, in Romania, one of the biggest solar power projects in Europe is also blocked amid concern for birds.
Disputes with locals and activists in Greece and Turkey over wind turbines have been frequent for several years now.
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