Voluntary participation: NOTUS energy undertakes to pay an annual municipal levy to the municipality of Uckerland

The municipality of Uckerland and NOTUS energy agree that the municipality will receive a voluntary municipal levy from the income generated by 29 wind turbines. For every kilowatt hour of electricity generated, the municipality will receive 0.2 cents per year. Mayor Matthias Schilling (SPD) and NOTUS energy Managing Director Heiner Röger signed the corresponding contracts on site on Monday, May 27, 2024. The mayor intends to use the money to push ahead with municipal heating planning, among other things.

The Renewable Energy Sources Act, which was amended by the traffic light coalition in Berlin, allows wind farm operators to give the local communities a direct share of the income from the turbines.

“We very much welcome this and are pleased that we can now conclude a corresponding agreement with the municipality of Uckerland,” says Heiner Röger, founder and Managing Director of NOTUS energy, headquartered in Potsdam.

Since 01.01.2023, the regulation in the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) has enabled plant operators to offer unilateral grants without consideration to municipalities in the vicinity of wind farms. NOTUS energy has been operating its turbines in the Milow, Lübbenow and Bandelow wind farms since 2017 and has now contractually committed to providing the municipality of Uckerland with a financial contribution for all wind turbines built and planned by NOTUS energy in the municipal area for the entire operating period, with retroactive effect from the beginning of the previous year. “We want local people to benefit directly from renewables and thus strengthen rural areas,” explains Röger. With the amount of 0.2 cents per KWh produced, the company is also making full use of the maximum permissible rate.

Municipality plans low heating costs for all

Matthias Schilling, SPD mayor of the municipality of Uckerland, welcomes the decision. “We have a saying: if you have to endure, you have to earn,” he said at the signing ceremony in the administration center in Lübbenow. “The new EEG makes a permanent payment to the municipalities possible.”

The municipality of Uckerland in the far north of Brandenburg is characterized by large-scale agriculture, one of the lowest population densities in Germany and extremely good wind conditions. A total of 111 wind turbines are currently in operation around the 11 villages and districts in the municipality. Notus currently owns 29 of these turbines.

“NOTUS energy is a pioneer for us. If we were to conclude such an agreement with all operators in the future, the municipality could expect annual income of at least 400,000 euros,” says Schilling.

In addition, there is a mandatory special levy under state law (Wind Energy Plant Levy Act) of 10,000 euros per erected wind turbine per year for turbines commissioned from 2020 onwards. By the end of 2025, two new and further turbines are planned throughout the municipality. In the long term, many wind turbines in the region will be renewed, meaning that the payment will also be made there. “These are very good prospects for us,” says Schilling happily.

Schilling plans to use the additional income to expand local heating networks that are heated with electricity from renewable energies. The first such system already exists in the district of Nechlin.