Does a ground-mounted PV system always need a development plan?

No, but in most cases yes. Ground-mounted PV installations lie in the outer area (Außenbereich) under § 35 BauGB and are only exceptionally privileged there. Without a privilege only a municipal development plan creates the building right, usually as a special area designated for photovoltaics. Exempt from the development plan requirement are: the strip of up to 200 metres along motorways and multi-track railway lines of the higher-level network (§ 35 (1) no. 8 (b) BauGB), agri-PV up to 25,000 square metres at a farmstead (§ 35 (1) no. 9 BauGB) and, since 23 December 2025, certain battery storage facilities (§ 35 (1) nos. 11 and 12 BauGB). All other land, including the classic less-favoured arable sites, needs the municipal procedure.

What exactly does § 35 (1) no. 8 (b) BauGB regulate?

Since 1 January 2023 the provision privileges photovoltaic installations on land alongside motorways or railway lines of the higher-level network within the meaning of § 2b of the General Railways Act with at least two main tracks, at a distance of up to 200 metres measured from the outer edge of the carriageway. No development plan is required there; the building permit under the state building code suffices. The limits matter: federal trunk roads create no privilege, and neither do single-track branch lines. Public interests such as nature, species, water and monument protection are still examined in the permit procedure, and under § 35 (5) BauGB the operator must undertake a decommissioning obligation.

Can I build right next to the motorway?

No. § 9 (1) of the Federal Trunk Roads Act prohibits structures within 40 metres of federal motorways and 20 metres of federal trunk roads, measured from the outer edge of the paved carriageway. Up to 100 metres (motorway) or 40 metres (trunk road) a restricted-building zone applies in which the road authority must consent. The practically usable privileged corridor along a motorway is therefore the strip between roughly 40 and 200 metres. Anyone offering land immediately at the carriageway should raise this with the developer from the outset.

Does the municipality also have to consent to a privileged installation?

Yes, but on a bound basis. Under § 36 (1) BauGB an outer-area project is decided by the building permit authority in agreement with the municipality. That consent may, however, only be withheld on the grounds arising from § 35 BauGB, and not out of political reluctance. If the municipality does not respond within two months of receiving the request, consent is deemed granted; consent unlawfully withheld can be substituted by the higher administrative authority. In practice this means that on privileged land the municipality cannot permanently prevent a project, but it can delay it by months.

How does the development plan procedure for a solar farm work?

The procedure begins with the council's resolution to prepare the plan under § 2 (1) BauGB. It is followed by early participation of the public and the authorities (§ 3 (1), § 4 (1) BauGB), preparation of the draft plan with the environmental report, formal public display for at least one month (§ 3 (2), § 4 (2) BauGB), the weighing of all submissions and finally adoption as a statute under § 10 BauGB. The plan enters into force with publication. Because the land-use plan usually still designates agriculture, it is amended in the parallel procedure under § 8 (3) BauGB. A project-related development plan under § 12 BauGB is frequently chosen, in which the developer undertakes in an implementation contract to deliver within a deadline.

How long does approval of a ground-mounted PV system take?

From the first council resolution to the building permit typically takes one to three years. The development plan procedure alone runs about twelve to eighteen months; municipalities with solar-farm experience manage six to eight months, while a municipality's first project regularly takes longer. On top come the vegetation period for the species survey, the grid connection request, and possibly waiting for one of the three annual auction dates of the Federal Network Agency. On privileged land the development plan falls away, which shortens the procedure to roughly six to twelve months; the technical assessments remain.

Who submits the application and who bears the cost of approval?

The applicant is the project developer or the later operating company, not the landowner. The developer asks the municipality to initiate the development plan procedure, commissions the planning office and the experts, submits the grid request and later the building application. It bears all the costs itself, governed by an urban development contract under § 11 BauGB and, for a project-related plan, additionally by the implementation contract under § 12 BauGB. The landowner incurs no permitting costs. The lease should state expressly that planning, approval, construction and decommissioning are entirely at the operator's expense and that nothing is owed if the procedure fails.

Can the municipality reject a solar farm?

Yes. The municipality holds planning sovereignty and decides freely whether to prepare a development plan. § 1 (3) sentence 2 BauGB expressly rules out any entitlement to it, including by contract. Many municipalities have adopted their own criteria catalogues or open-space concepts setting out which land they will develop and what is required in terms of setbacks, screening planting and citizen participation; these resolutions are usually public in the council information system. On privileged land, by contrast, the municipality cannot prevent the project through building law, because it may only withhold its consent under § 36 BauGB on the grounds set out in § 35 BauGB.

What is the municipal profit share under § 6 EEG?

§ 6 EEG allows operators of ground-mounted solar installations to pay municipalities within a radius of 2,500 metres of the installation up to 0.2 cents per kilowatt hour actually fed in. The operator is reimbursed that amount by the grid operator and is therefore not economically burdened. The payment is voluntary but in practice almost always part of the package, because it eases approval in the council. For a 20 MWp installation with around 20 GWh of annual output that is roughly 40,000 euros a year across the whole operating life. It does not replace trade tax and is independent of the rent paid to the landowner.

Which land is eligible for support under § 37 EEG?

The EEG land catalogue covers, among others, other structures, already sealed surfaces, conversion sites from economic, transport, housing or military use, a strip of up to 500 metres along motorways and railway lines, land in development plans adopted before 1 September 2003, commercial and industrial areas designated before 2010, federally owned land, and arable land and grassland in less-favoured areas. Added to this are the special solar installations agri-PV, peatland PV, car-park PV and floating PV with their own auction sub-segment. Land outside the catalogue receives no EEG tariff but can be realised through direct marketing or a PPA.

Are less-favoured areas still eligible for support in 2026?

Yes, and nationwide. With Solar Package I, in force since 16 May 2024, arable land and grassland in less-favoured areas sit directly in the land catalogue of § 37 (1) no. 2 (h) and (i) EEG; Natura 2000 sites and legally protected biotopes are excluded. The earlier logic has thereby reversed: § 37c EEG has become an exclusion clause rather than an opening clause. The states may disregard bids in whole or in part by ordinance, in particular above a share of ground-mounted installations of more than 1 per cent of the state's agricultural area (1.5 per cent from 2031) and in landscape protection areas and nature parks. Guides that still speak of a required opening ordinance are on the pre-May-2024 footing.

What is the difference between the 200-metre and the 500-metre strip?

The 200-metre strip is building law, the 500-metre strip is subsidy law. § 35 (1) no. 8 (b) BauGB privileges the installation up to 200 metres along motorways and multi-track railway lines of the higher-level network, and there the development plan falls away. § 37 (1) no. 2 (c) EEG additionally makes land up to 500 metres along motorways and railway lines eligible for support, but requires that a development plan be prepared or amended, and sets no requirement as to the number of main tracks. Between 200 and 500 metres, therefore: eligible for support yes, privileged no.

Is the development plan enough or is a building permit also needed?

The development plan only creates the building right; construction requires the building permit under the relevant state building code. The building application goes to the lower building supervisory authority of the district or independent city, which checks conformity with the plan's designations, with building regulations law and with the sectoral statutes. The nature conservation authority, water authority, monument authority and road authority are consulted. Only with the building permit and the grid connection confirmation can the developer submit the installation into an auction and start construction. In individual states an installation within the area of a development plan can be procedure-free; that does not, however, replace compliance with substantive law.

Is an environmental impact assessment required?

Two things have to be distinguished. The environmental assessment under § 2 (4) BauGB, with an environmental report, is mandatory for every development plan. A formal environmental impact assessment under the UVPG, by contrast, depends on thresholds: under Annex 1 no. 18.7 UVPG an EIA is mandatory from a permissible built area of 100,000 square metres, a general case-by-case screening applies between 20,000 and 100,000 square metres, and below that the EIA falls away. What counts is the permissible built area within the meaning of § 19 (2) BauNVO, that is the built-over area and not the size of the leased plot. For most solar farms on unburdened sites the environmental assessment within the planning procedure therefore suffices.

What does the impact mitigation regime mean and do I need compensation areas?

A solar farm is an intervention in nature and landscape under § 14 BNatSchG, which must be avoided, minimised and, for the remainder, compensated. Because the soil beneath the modules remains unsealed and the site is greened extensively, a large part of the compensation can be delivered inside the solar farm itself, for instance through flowering strips, stone piles, the absence of fertiliser and pesticides, or grazing instead of mulching. Remaining deficits are covered by external compensation areas or eco-accounts. The extent of compensation is determined by the valuation method of the respective federal state and forms part of the environmental report. The developer bears the costs.

Is ground-mounted PV possible in a landscape protection area?

In principle construction in a landscape protection area is prohibited, because the protective ordinance forbids changes to the landscape. The project is only possible if the nature conservation authority grants an exemption or a derogation under § 67 BNatSchG, or if the affected sub-area is released from the protected area. Both are discretionary decisions handled very differently from state to state and district to district. In addition, under § 37c EEG the states may exclude bids from the auction precisely in landscape protection areas and nature parks. Developers therefore approach such land cautiously and prefer sites without protected status where alternatives exist nearby.

What applies in nature reserves, Natura 2000 sites and water protection areas?

Nature reserves and Natura 2000 sites are as a rule ruled out for ground-mounted PV, because the building ban of the protective ordinance or the assessment under § 34 BNatSchG already stands in the way; they are also expressly excluded from the EEG catalogue for less-favoured areas. Land in the immediate vicinity also requires a Natura 2000 screening. In water protection areas the protection zone decides: zones I and II are off limits, in zone III an installation may be admissible subject to conditions on foundations, transformers and cleaning agents. This assessment is carried out by the lower water authority within the permit procedure. Independently of this, the biotopes protected under § 30 BNatSchG apply.

What happens if archaeological remains are suspected on the land?

Archaeological remains and the settings of listed buildings are examined in the procedure by the monument authority. If the land lies in an area of archaeological suspicion, the authority usually requires a preliminary investigation or construction-accompanying observation before building, at the developer's expense. Finds can delay the pile driving but rarely prevent the project, because the modules are elevated without deep soil intervention. Where listed buildings are nearby, the issue is the protection of their setting, which may require setbacks or screening planting.

What setback from residential buildings is required?

There is no nationwide minimum distance, unlike wind energy with its state rules. The municipality sets in the development plan how far the modules must stay from dwellings, often guided by its own criteria catalogue. What matters is the landscape, potential glare and the avoidance of visually encircling a settlement. In practice the required setbacks lie between a few dozen and a few hundred metres, supplemented by screening planting with hedges or tree lines. For battery storage facilities an additional noise-driven setback requirement arises from the Technical Instructions on Noise Abatement (TA Lärm).

How are grid connection and approval related?

Without a grid connection there is no project. The developer submits the grid request to the responsible grid operator, usually the medium-voltage operator rather than the better-known high-voltage operator of the region. That operator determines at which grid connection point the planned capacity can be fed in, which network reinforcements are needed and what connection costs arise. Grid connection confirmations are time-limited and tied to the specific project, so approval and grid connection have to fit together in time. A grid request is a binding procedural step with deadlines, evidence requirements and reservation rules, not an informal preliminary conversation.

Does the grid request have to wait for the resolution to prepare the plan?

No. In the reservation procedures of regional grid operators we reviewed, the resolution to prepare the plan is only one of several equally ranked pieces of evidence. What is mandatory in the request phase are the complete technical data sheets under the applicable technical connection rules plus one credible indication that the project is serious; the planning trigger for the land-use procedure, which exists before any council resolution, is already sufficient for that. The legally effective development plan is only required at the binding registration for implementation. Because capacity is allocated first come, first served, the grid request and the approach to the municipality should run in parallel. What applies is always the current guidance note of the specifically responsible grid operator.

What special rules apply to agri-PV?

Agri-photovoltaics combines electricity generation and agricultural use on the same land; the technical requirements are defined by DIN SPEC 91434. In building law, special solar installations are privileged under § 35 (1) no. 9 BauGB if three conditions coincide: a spatial and functional connection with an agricultural holding, a built area of no more than 25,000 square metres, and only one installation per farmstead or operating site. Covered are agri-PV with crop cultivation, with permanent crops and on permanent grassland, but not car-park PV, peatland PV or floating installations. Larger agri-PV installations need a development plan. Under the EEG, special solar installations have their own auction sub-segment with its own maximum value.

Does the building turbo under § 246e BauGB also apply to solar farms?

No. § 246e BauGB entered into force on 30 October 2025 and allows municipalities, until 31 December 2030, to deviate from almost all planning law provisions without adopting a development plan. The condition, however, is a project for residential use. A solar farm or a battery storage facility does not qualify. European RED III does not help either in 2026: the German transposition act of August 2025 regulates acceleration areas only for wind energy, and the acceleration areas for solar energy that appeared in the draft are no longer in the adopted act. For ground-mounted PV the ordinary planning procedure therefore remains.

What is the decommissioning obligation and who secures it?

Under § 35 (5) BauGB the operator of a privileged installation must undertake to dismantle it after the permitted use is permanently abandoned and to remove soil sealing. For installations within a development plan the same obligation is written into the urban development contract and the building permit. The authority requires a financial guarantee for this, usually a bank guarantee in the amount of the estimated decommissioning costs. That security, however, serves the authority and not the landowner. Agree in the lease on an additional decommissioning security in your own favour, indexed to construction cost developments, so that you are protected even if the operator becomes insolvent.

How long does construction take once the permit has been granted?

Construction of a solar farm is short compared with the approval. After the start of works it usually takes a few months until the substructure, modules, inverters and transformer station are in place. The cable route to the grid connection point and the completion of the grid connection by the grid operator often take longer and run independently of the installation's construction schedule. Construction windows can additionally be constrained by species protection requirements, for instance a clearing ban in the breeding season or rules on pile driving outside certain months. Allow two to four years in total from the first approach to commissioning.

Is battery storage privileged in the outer area?

Yes, since 23 December 2025. § 35 (1) no. 11 BauGB privileges the co-located storage facility standing in a spatial and functional connection with an existing renewable energy installation, with no output or capacity threshold at all. § 35 (1) no. 12 BauGB privileges the stand-alone facility, but only under narrow locational conditions. Both provisions apply indefinitely, and the decommissioning obligation of § 35 (5) BauGB was expressly extended to them. The widely quoted threshold of 1 megawatt hour comes from an interim version that was replaced on the very day it entered into force, and does not apply.

What conditions does the storage privilege under § 35 (1) no. 12 BauGB impose?

Three conditions must be met together. First, the project must lie no more than 200 metres from the property boundary of a transformer substation from extra-high to high voltage or from high to medium voltage, or alternatively from the property boundary of an operating or decommissioned power plant with a rated output of 50 megawatts or more. Second, the battery storage installation must have a rated output of at least 4 megawatts. Third, the total area taken up in the same municipality by all facilities permitted under this number, including ancillary facilities and open areas, must not exceed 0.5 per cent of the municipal area or 50,000 square metres. Once a municipality's quota is used up, the next project needs a development plan again.

Does a large battery storage facility need a permit under the Federal Immission Control Act?

As a rule no. Only the installations listed in Annex 1 of the 4th Ordinance to the Federal Immission Control Act require a permit under § 4 BImSchG, and a battery storage facility is not listed; analogous application to unlisted installation types is excluded. The only accumulator provision, number 3.21, covers installations for manufacturing lead accumulators, that is the factory. Exceptions are conceivable where the storage facility is an ancillary facility of an installation that already requires a permit, or where Annex 1 substances are additionally stored on site in threshold quantities. The normal case is the building permit under the state building code. The operator duties of § 22 BImSchG still apply, which is why the TA Lärm has to be observed.

How loud is a battery storage facility and what setback from housing is needed?

There is no statutory minimum distance; what governs are the immission limit values of the TA Lärm and a propagation calculation. The determining source is not the inverters but the coolers of the battery containers: in a publicly available noise study for a storage development plan they were modelled at a sound power level of 103.1 dB(A), some 20 dB(A) above the power stations. The critical period is always the night, when 40 dB(A) applies in a general residential area and 45 dB(A) in a mixed or village area, measured in the loudest full night hour. In that study the night values were exceeded by 5 to 10 dB at a distance of around 90 metres, which made a noise protection concept necessary.

What fire safety and firefighting water requirements apply to battery storage?

Germany has no binding fire safety standard for large battery storage facilities; what governs is the building regulations law of the states plus technical recommendations, above all the BVES safety guide for lithium-ion large storage systems in its 3rd edition of 20 November 2025 and the vfdb guidance note TWB-02 of February 2025. Typical requirements are 5 to 10 metres of distance to other objects, 3 metres to cast-resin and 5 metres to oil transformers, fire brigade access lanes at least 3.5 metres wide based on DIN 14090, and a firefighting water rate of 800 litres per minute over two hours, that is at least 96 cubic metres. Firefighting water retention follows from § 20 AwSV under water law. The Austrian TRVB 165 N does not apply in Germany.

In which federal states is ground-mounted PV procedure-free?

Building regulations law is state law, and the differences in 2026 are large. Baden-Württemberg has made solar installations procedure-free since June 2025 with no size or location limit. Bavaria has exempted installations privileged under § 35 (1) no. 8 BauGB and statute-compliant installations since January 2025, but expressly not agri-PV. Hesse exempted privileged installations under § 35 (1) no. 8 (b) and no. 9 BauGB without a height limit in October 2025. Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia exempt installations within the area of a corresponding statute or development plan. In North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony, Brandenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Saarland, Berlin, Bremen and above all Hamburg the building permit remains. Procedure-free never means law-free: species protection, water and monument law apply unchanged.

Ground-Mounted Solar Approval in Germany 2026: the two routes to a building right, timelines, costs — and what has applied to battery storage since December 2025

In Germany there are exactly two routes to a building right for a ground-mounted solar farm: privileged status in the outer area (Außenbereich) under § 35 (1) no. 8 (b) of the Federal Building Code (Baugesetzbuch, BauGB) within the 200-metre strip along motorways and multi-track railway lines — or a development plan (Bebauungsplan) adopted by the municipality, which typically takes one to three years from the resolution to prepare the plan to the building permit. Which route applies is decided almost entirely by where your land lies. Since 23 December 2025 there is additionally a dedicated privilege for battery storage (§ 35 (1) nos. 11 and 12 BauGB) — which, for grid-adjacent land near a substation, is often faster than any solar farm. This guide walks through both procedures step by step, sets out the technical assessments with their exact thresholds, explains the EEG land catalogue, compares the state building codes and answers 36 questions landowners ask before their first conversation with a developer.

"Check in 10 seconds — no email, no callback"

Open land in the outer area before a solar farm is built

Key Takeaways

Two routes to a building right. Privileged status in the 200-metre strip along motorways and multi-track railway lines (§ 35 (1) no. 8 (b) BauGB) — then a building permit suffices. Otherwise: a development plan adopted by the municipality, usually as a special area (Sondergebiet) for photovoltaics.

Duration: one to three years. The development plan procedure alone takes 12–18 months; experienced municipalities manage 6–8. The real time drivers lie elsewhere: species mapping across a full vegetation period, the grid connection request, and the auction date.

The application and the costs sit with the project developer, the decision with the municipality. The landowner incurs no permitting costs — and that belongs explicitly in the lease.

Battery storage has been privileged since 23 December 2025 (§ 35 (1) nos. 11 and 12 BauGB): either co-located with an existing renewable installation, or stand-alone from 4 MW rated output within 200 metres of a substation, capped at 0.5 % of the municipal area and no more than 50,000 m².

The EEG subsidy catalogue is wider than the building-law privilege: 500 metres along motorways and railways (§ 37 (1) no. 2 (c) EEG) instead of 200 metres in building law, plus conversion sites, sealed surfaces, commercial areas and arable land and grassland in less-favoured areas.

The environmental assessment is always part of a development plan; a formal EIA only applies from 20,000 m² of permissible built area (case-by-case screening) or 100,000 m² (mandatory) — Annex 1 no. 18.7 of the German EIA Act (UVPG).

The grid request does not wait for the municipality. In the reservation procedures we reviewed, the resolution to prepare the plan is only one of several equally ranked pieces of evidence — and capacity is allocated first come, first served.

The "building turbo" does not help. § 246e BauGB has applied since 30 October 2025, but only to projects for residential use. And the German legislature specifically declined to create acceleration areas for solar energy when it transposed RED III in August 2025.

The two routes to a building right

Almost every agricultural plot lies, in planning terms, in the outer area (Außenbereich) under § 35 BauGB. Building there is fundamentally undesired — a project is only admissible if it is either expressly privileged or if the municipality creates a building right through a development plan. Which of the two routes applies to your land hinges on a single question: does it lie in the privileged corridor?

Location of the land	Legal basis	What is needed	Typical duration
Up to 200 m along a motorway or a multi-track railway line of the higher-level network	§ 35 (1) no. 8 (b) BauGB	Building permit (state building code) + municipal consent under § 36 BauGB	6–12 months
Agri-PV up to 25,000 m² at a farmstead	§ 35 (1) no. 9 BauGB	Building permit + consent	6–12 months
Battery storage at an existing renewable installation	§ 35 (1) no. 11 BauGB	Building permit + consent	6–12 months
Battery storage from 4 MW within 200 m of a substation	§ 35 (1) no. 12 BauGB	Building permit + consent, subject to the municipal area cap	6–12 months
All other land — that is, the classic solar farm on arable land or grassland	§ 30 BauGB together with a development plan	Development plan (usually a photovoltaics Sondergebiet) + amendment of the land-use plan + building permit	1–3 years

The durations are experience values from real projects, not statutory deadlines; they depend heavily on whether a species survey has to be repeated and how quickly the grid operator responds.

Privileged status in the 200-metre strip under § 35 (1) no. 8 (b) BauGB

Since 1 January 2023 a photovoltaic installation is privileged in the outer area if it lies "on land alongside (aa) motorways or (bb) railway lines of the higher-level network within the meaning of § 2b of the General Railways Act with at least two main tracks, and at a distance from them of up to 200 metres, measured from the outer edge of the carriageway". On such land no development plan is required any more, only the building permit from the lower building supervisory authority.

Three points are regularly overlooked:

Not every railway line counts. The law requires railway lines of the higher-level network with at least two main tracks. A single-track branch line, or a regional line outside the higher-level network, creates no privilege — and neither does a federal trunk road (Bundesstraße), however busy. Motorways only.
The first 40 metres along the motorway remain off limits. § 9 (1) of the Federal Trunk Roads Act (FStrG) prohibits structures within a zone of 40 metres along federal motorways (20 metres along federal trunk roads), measured from the outer edge of the paved carriageway; up to 100 metres (motorway) or 40 metres (trunk road) there is a restricted-building zone in which the road authority must consent. In practice the usable privileged corridor along a motorway is therefore the strip between roughly 40 and 200 metres.
Privileged is not unconditional. Here too, no public interests may conflict with the project: species protection, water law, monument protection and the landscape are examined in the building permit procedure just as they would be in a development plan. And under § 35 (5) BauGB the operator must undertake a decommissioning obligation (Rückbauverpflichtung), which the authority secures by way of a financial guarantee.

Even a privileged installation needs the municipality: § 36 BauGB

A widespread misconception holds that in the privileged strip the municipality is out of the picture. The opposite is true: under § 36 (1) BauGB an outer-area project is decided by the building permit authority expressly in agreement with the municipality. The difference from the development plan route is the binding effect: consent may only be withheld "on the grounds arising from § 31 (1) and (2), §§ 33, 34 (1), (2) and (3a) and from § 35" — that is, not out of political reluctance. If the municipality does not respond within two months, consent is deemed granted; consent unlawfully withheld can be substituted by the higher administrative authority.

For landowners this means: on privileged land the municipality cannot permanently block a project, but it can delay it by months. An early, open conversation at the town hall is the cheaper option here too.

Agri-PV: its own privilege up to 25,000 m²

For special solar installations there has been a second privilege since 2023, § 35 (1) no. 9 BauGB. It applies to "special solar installations within the meaning of § 48 (1) sentence 1 no. 5 (a), (b) or (c) of the Renewable Energy Sources Act" — that is, agri-PV with simultaneous crop cultivation on arable land (letter a), with permanent or multi-year crops (letter b) and on permanent grassland with continued grassland use (letter c). Car-park PV, peatland PV and floating installations are not covered.

Three conditions must coincide: a spatial and functional connection with an agricultural holding under § 35 (1) no. 1 or 2 BauGB, a built area of no more than 25,000 square metres (2.5 hectares), and "only one installation is operated per farmstead or operating site". Larger agri-PV installations need a development plan like any other solar farm. The technical requirements for the dual use are defined by DIN SPEC 91434; the open legal questions of this still young class of installation are covered in Agri-photovoltaics and legal uncertainty.

Approving battery storage (BESS) on your land

Since 23 December 2025 the outer area has had its own privilege for battery storage installations. For owners of grid-adjacent land this is the most important change in building law in years — and many guides still get it wrong. If you own land within sight of a substation, read this section first: rents for battery storage are a multiple of solar rents, and the permitting route is often shorter. The commercial side is covered in Leasing land for large-scale battery storage.

Battery storage containers at a ground-mounted installation

§ 35 (1) nos. 11 and 12 BauGB: what has applied since 23 December 2025

The legislature created two separate provisions. Number 11 privileges the co-located storage facility:

"11. serves the storage of electrical energy in a battery storage installation and the project stands in a spatial and functional connection with an existing installation for the use of renewable energy"

There is no capacity or output threshold here. Anyone who already has a solar farm or a wind turbine on their land can place a storage facility next to it without the municipality having to adopt a development plan.

Number 12 privileges the stand-alone storage facility — and does so narrowly:

"12. serves the storage of electrical energy in a battery storage installation not covered by number 11, subject to the following conditions: (a) the project lies at a distance of no more than 200 metres from the property boundary of a transformer substation from extra-high to high voltage or from high to medium voltage, or from the property boundary of an operating or decommissioned power plant with a rated output of 50 megawatts or more, and (b) the battery storage installation has a rated output of at least 4 megawatts, and (c) the total area taken up by all battery storage installations permitted under this number, including their ancillary facilities and open areas, within the same municipality does not exceed 0.5 per cent of the municipal area and amounts to no more than 50,000 square metres."

All three conditions must be met cumulatively. Three consequences matter for landowners:

The 200 metres count from the property boundary of the substation, not from the switchgear — and not every "substation" qualifies: only transformer stations from extra-high to high voltage or from high to medium voltage. A local medium-to-low-voltage station creates no privilege.
The 4 megawatts are rated output, not capacity. A typical two-hour storage unit of 4 MW holds roughly 8 MWh — the much-quoted threshold "from 1 megawatt hour" is not in the law in force (more on that below).
The area cap applies cumulatively per municipality, across all facilities permitted under no. 12, including ancillary facilities and open areas. If a small municipality has already used up its quota — 0.5 per cent of its area, at most 5 hectares — the privilege no longer applies there to further projects. Being early is a genuine advantage; being late means a development plan again.

The provision contains no sunset clause — unlike the building turbo it applies indefinitely. The decommissioning obligation of § 35 (5) BauGB was expressly extended to the new numbers: sentence 2 now requires the undertaking for projects under "subsection 1 numbers 2 to 6, 8 (b) and numbers 9 to 12". For landowners that means: for a storage facility too, your own decommissioning security belongs in the lease.

The most common error: "battery storage from 1 MWh is privileged"

This statement appears in many specialist articles and is wrong. The reason is an unusual legislative sequence within a few weeks:

Date	What happened
13 Nov 2025	As part of the Energy Industry Act amendment, the Bundestag adopts a far-reaching privilege: battery storage from 1 megawatt hour of storage capacity, with no locational requirement.
21 Nov 2025	The Bundesrat lets the act pass (no mediation committee).
4 Dec 2025	After heavy criticism, the Bundestag adopts the restriction within the Geothermal Acceleration Act: the number 11 just inserted is replaced by today's numbers 11 and 12 — co-location plus stand-alone only with the 200-metre, 4 MW and area-cap conditions.
19 Dec 2025	The Bundesrat lets this act pass too, but attaches a resolution: the wording "existing installation" in number 11 should not be read as requiring the renewable installation to be already built.
22 Dec 2025	Both acts are promulgated in the Federal Law Gazette (BGBl. 2025 I nos. 347 and 348).
23 Dec 2025	Both enter into force on the same day. The 1 MWh version therefore never had a period of application of its own.

Anyone reading a source today that speaks of "1 MWh" or of entry into force "on 1 January 2026" is reading a superseded interim version. What governs is the wording quoted above.

Does battery storage need a permit under the Federal Immission Control Act?

As a rule no. Only the installations listed in Annex 1 of the 4th Ordinance to the Federal Immission Control Act (4. BImSchV) require a permit under § 4 BImSchG — a battery storage facility is not listed there, and analogous application to unlisted installation types is excluded. The only express accumulator provision, no. 3.21, covers installations for the manufacture of lead accumulators, that is the factory and not the operation of a storage facility. A storage facility can exceptionally fall into the immission-control procedure if it is an ancillary facility of an installation that requires a permit anyway (for instance on a power plant or industrial site), or if Annex 1 substances are additionally stored on site in threshold quantities. The normal case is the building permit under the state building code.

Not requiring a permit does not mean being unregulated, however: the storage facility remains an installation within the meaning of the BImSchG and is subject to the operator duties of § 22 BImSchG. That is why the Technical Instructions on Noise Abatement (TA Lärm) apply.

Noise is the bottleneck, not fire safety

The underestimated permitting issue for battery storage is noise. What determines the level is not the inverters but the coolers of the battery containers. In a publicly available noise study for a storage development plan in Saarland, the coolers were modelled with a sound power level of 103.1 dB(A) — around 20 dB(A) more than the power stations at 84.5 dB(A).

Against that stand the immission limit values of the TA Lärm (no. 6.1), outside buildings:

Area type	Daytime (6 a.m.–10 p.m.)	Night (10 p.m.–6 a.m.)
Industrial area	70 dB(A)	70 dB(A)
Commercial area	65 dB(A)	50 dB(A)
Urban area	63 dB(A)	45 dB(A)
Core, village and mixed areas	60 dB(A)	45 dB(A)
General residential and small settlement areas	55 dB(A)	40 dB(A)
Purely residential area	50 dB(A)	35 dB(A)
Spa areas, hospitals, care homes	45 dB(A)	35 dB(A)

What counts is the loudest full night hour. In the study cited, the daytime values were met at every assessment point, but at night the limits at surrounding housing were exceeded by 5 to 10 dB — at a distance of roughly 90 metres. The consequence was a noise protection concept with designations in the development plan. There is no statutory minimum distance from housing for battery storage; the necessary distance follows arithmetically from sound power, area type and propagation calculation. If your land is close to a settlement, ask early about the noise study — and do not let a blanket figure reassure you.

Fire safety, firefighting water and water law

Germany has no binding fire safety standard for large battery storage facilities. What governs is the building regulations law of the states plus technical recommendations; the central German practice document is the BVES safety guide for lithium-ion large storage systems, 3rd edition of 20 November 2025, supplemented by the vfdb guidance note TWB-02 (February 2025). The magnitudes named there shape the conditions in building permits:

Distances to other objects: on current knowledge 5 to 10 metres appear sufficient, always to be set case by case. This expressly does not mean the distance between storage containers within a park. To transformers, DIN VDE 0101-1 generally calls for 3 metres for cast-resin and 5 metres for oil transformers. Distances can be reduced by non-combustible solid walls taken at least 0.5 metres above and 0.5 metres in front of and behind the storage unit.
Fire brigade access: carriageways at least 3.5 metres wide, based on DIN 14090 and the guideline on areas for the fire brigade.
Firefighting water: for medium and large installations a minimum rate of 800 litres per minute over two hours, that is at least 96 cubic metres in total. For small storage units within a ground-mounted PV installation this may be dispensed with in the outer area; alternatives to the hydrant network are firefighting water tanks to DIN 14230 or wells to DIN 14220.
Firefighting water retention: building regulations law currently sets no requirement; water law, however, requires under § 20 AwSV the retention of firefighting water and water-hazardous combustion products. This becomes relevant in practice for large installations and in water protection areas.
Water law: lithium-ion cells with cobalt and nickel compounds in the cathode are classified in water hazard class 3; where the cell chemistry is unknown, § 3 (4) AwSV requires class 3 to be assumed anyway. The guidance note of the Federal-State Working Group on handling water-hazardous substances of 29 May 2024 treats stationary storage as an installation for using lithium-ion batteries.
A realistic expectation: the BVES guide records that, given the characteristic course of a lithium-ion fire, firefighting generally cannot prevent the total loss of the affected installation. For landowners the relevant question is therefore less the firefighting tactics than who clears the site afterwards — that too belongs in the lease.

One frequent transfer error: TRVB 165 N on battery storage installations is an Austrian guideline and does not apply in Germany. Likewise UL 9540A and NFPA 855 are US standards; they are not binding here but are in practice used for propagation testing.

Grid connection for storage: different rules from PV

For a battery storage facility the grid connection decides the project even more than for a solar installation — and the legal position is less favourable to operators than many expect:

The KraftNAV does not apply to battery storage. The Federal Network Agency clarified this by decision of 30 March 2026 (BK6-25-325); only the provisions of the Energy Industry Act govern.
There is no entitlement to grid expansion. In an abuse-of-market-power procedure under § 31 EnWG the Federal Network Agency confirmed on 4 May 2026 (BK6-25-287) that § 17 EnWG — unlike the EEG — grants no right to individual grid expansion; connection is to the grid "as it stands". A grid operator may refuse connection where it is technically or economically unreasonable, but must give a case-specific, technically plausible justification.
The grid connection contribution is lawful. On 15 July 2025 the Federal Court of Justice (case EnVR 1/24) held that a grid connection contribution calculated on the capacity-price model for grid-connected battery storage is not discriminatory within the meaning of § 17 (1) EnWG. For projects this is a substantial but plannable cost block — borne by the operator, not the landowner.
Grid fee exemption with an end date: under § 118 (6) EnWG newly built electricity storage facilities are exempt for 20 years from commissioning from the grid fees on the energy drawn for storage, provided they are commissioned by 4 August 2029. That is the reason for the time pressure developers are currently building up — and an argument for not leaving a storage site sitting in a non-binding option for years.
Overriding public interest: § 11c EnWG states that the construction and operation of electricity storage facilities are in the overriding public interest and serve public health — an argument in the balancing exercise that increasingly matters in permitting and planning procedures.

Does a storage facility receive EEG support?

A pure grid storage facility is not an EEG installation and receives no support; only electricity from renewable sources is supported. § 19 EEG merely governs the conditions under which the generating installation keeps its entitlement when the electricity is buffered before being fed into the grid. There are three routes: the exclusivity option (§ 19 (3a) EEG, only renewable electricity is stored in the calendar year), the allocation option (§ 19 (3b) EEG, multi-use with an arithmetical separation of green and grey electricity) and the flat-rate option (§ 19 (3c) EEG, for small PV-plus-storage combinations). It is commonly said that Solar Package I enabled multi-use — that is only half the story: the variants in force today come from the Solar Peaks Act of February 2025, and the allocation and flat-rate options are subject to an implementation caveat requiring a determination by the Federal Network Agency (the MiSpeL procedure under § 85d EEG).

When storage makes sense for your land

The rule of thumb after this section is simple: the closer the substation, the more likely the storage facility. If your land lies within 200 metres of the property boundary of a substation at the extra-high/high or high/medium voltage level, a stand-alone facility from 4 MW is privileged and needs no development plan — provided the municipality has not used up its area cap. If you already have a solar farm on the land, the co-location privilege applies with no size threshold at all. In both cases the permitting route stays shorter than for a classic solar farm, while the rent is considerably higher. Whether your land is close enough to a substation is shown by the ENLAPA area check, which reports the distance to the nearest grid connection point; the contract and rent side is covered at lease land for battery storage.

The development plan procedure step by step

Without a privilege, only the municipality can create the building right, by adopting a development plan (Bebauungsplan), usually as a special area (Sondergebiet) designated for photovoltaics. The procedure follows the Federal Building Code and runs through fixed stations:

Step	Legal basis	What happens	Typical duration
1. Resolution to prepare the plan (Aufstellungsbeschluss)	§ 2 (1) BauGB	The council resolves to prepare a development plan for the site. The first political decision, usually combined with a public presentation of the project.	1–6 months until the council meeting
2. Early participation	§ 3 (1), § 4 (1) BauGB	The public, neighbouring municipalities and public agencies (nature conservation, water, monument authorities, agricultural office, grid operator) comment on the basics of the plan.	1–2 months
3. Draft plan and environmental report	§ 2 (4), § 2a BauGB	The planning office prepares the designations, the reasoning and the environmental report with the expert studies on species protection, impact mitigation, glare and landscape.	4–12 months, depending on the survey season
4. Formal public display	§ 3 (2), § 4 (2) BauGB	The draft is on public display for at least one month, anyone may comment, and the authorities are consulted again.	1–2 months
5. Weighing and adoption as a statute	§ 1 (7), § 10 BauGB	The council weighs all submissions, adopts the plan as a statute and publishes it. The plan enters into force with publication.	1–3 months
6. Building permit	State building code	Building application to the lower building supervisory authority; it checks conformity with the plan's designations, building regulations law and the sectoral statutes.	2–6 months

Because the land-use plan (Flächennutzungsplan) almost always still designates the site as agricultural land, it has to be amended in parallel — the Federal Building Code expressly permits this in the parallel procedure under § 8 (3) BauGB. In practice a project-related development plan (vorhabenbezogener Bebauungsplan) under § 12 BauGB is often chosen: the developer becomes the project sponsor, submits a project and infrastructure plan and undertakes in an implementation contract to deliver within a deadline. For the municipality this is the safer variant, because the building right stays tied to that specific project.

How long the approval really takes

From the resolution to prepare the plan to the building permit typically takes one to three years. The development plan steps alone usually take twelve to eighteen months, because every participation round has statutory periods and the council only decides at its scheduled meetings; municipalities with solar-farm experience manage six to eight months, while a municipality's first project regularly takes longer.

The biggest time drivers, however, lie outside the procedure, and they are what decides the year:

The species survey has to cover a full vegetation period. Anyone starting in July does not survey until the following spring — a missed season costs twelve months.
The grid connection request has its own processing periods and reservation rules (more on this below).
Anyone seeking the EEG tariff has to wait for one of the Federal Network Agency's auction dates; in the ground-mounted segment there are three per year.

On privileged land the development plan falls away, which noticeably shortens the procedure — but the technical assessments remain in full.

Technical assessments: environment, species, water, monuments, neighbours

Between the resolution to prepare the plan and its adoption lies the actual work: the expert studies showing that the project is compatible with nature, landscape and neighbourhood. In practice they decide both the duration and the outcome of the procedure.

Environmental assessment and EIA: the thresholds

Two things are often confused. The environmental assessment under § 2 (4) BauGB is mandatory for every development plan; its result is the environmental report covering soil, water, climate, animals, plants, landscape and people. A formal environmental impact assessment (EIA) under the UVPG is something else and depends on a size threshold. Ground-mounted PV falls under Annex 1 no. 18.7 UVPG — "construction of an urban development project for other structures for which a development plan is prepared in what was previously the outer area within the meaning of § 35 of the Federal Building Code":

Permissible built area (§ 19 (2) BauNVO)	Number	Consequence
100,000 m² or more	18.7.1	EIA mandatory
20,000 m² to under 100,000 m²	18.7.2	general case-by-case screening
under 20,000 m²	—	no EIA, only the environmental assessment within the planning procedure

For development plans in other areas — that is, outside the previous outer area — no. 18.8 UVPG refers to the same threshold values. The decisive term is permissible built area (zulässige Grundfläche): what matters is not the size of the leased plot but the built area designated in the development plan. For a solar farm this is, depending on the designation, the area taken up by module tables, foundations, transformer stations and tracks — considerably less than the gross site area. For most solar farms on unburdened sites it therefore stays with the environmental assessment in the planning procedure, which contains the central expert studies anyway.

Species protection

The prohibitions of § 44 of the Federal Nature Conservation Act (BNatSchG) apply irrespective of the development plan and irrespective of any privilege. A survey is therefore carried out across a vegetation period to establish which breeding birds, reptiles, amphibians and bats use the site. Typical conflict species on arable land are skylark, lapwing, grey partridge and sand lizard. If they are recorded, avoidance measures such as construction-timing rules and advance compensation measures (CEF) such as skylark plots, flowering strips or substitute habitats become necessary. The survey is the most frequent cause of delay: it is only possible in certain months, and a missed season sets the project back a year. For landowners this means: a developer who promises in autumn that "we will start building in spring" has either already surveyed — or has not budgeted for the survey at all.

Impact mitigation and compensation areas

A solar farm is an intervention in nature and landscape under § 14 BNatSchG. The impact mitigation regime requires it to be avoided, minimised and the remainder compensated. Because the soil beneath the modules remains unsealed and the site is managed extensively as grassland, a large part of the compensation can be delivered within the installation itself — flowering strips, stone piles, no fertiliser or pesticides, grazing instead of mulching. Remaining deficits are covered by external compensation areas or eco-accounts. The valuation methods differ by federal state, the principle is the same everywhere. How much nature conservation a solar farm can actually deliver is shown in Solar parks and biodiversity.

Landscape protection, nature reserves, Natura 2000 and water protection

In a landscape protection area (Landschaftsschutzgebiet) a solar farm is in principle prohibited, because the protective ordinance forbids changes to the landscape. It is only possible with an exemption or a derogation from the nature conservation authority (§ 67 BNatSchG), or if the sub-area is released from the protected area — both discretionary decisions with very different regional practice. Nature reserves and Natura 2000 sites are as a rule ruled out; land in the immediate vicinity also requires a Natura 2000 screening under § 34 BNatSchG. In water protection areas the protection zone decides: zones I and II are off limits, in zone III an installation is frequently admissible subject to conditions on foundations, transformers and cleaning agents. On top of this come the biotopes protected by law under § 30 BNatSchG, which apply irrespective of any area designation.

Flood areas

In designated flood areas § 78 of the Federal Water Act (WHG) imposes a building ban and prohibits the designation of new building areas. An exemption is only possible if flood discharge and retention volume are not impaired and no danger to life and property arises. For elevated modules this is accepted in individual cases, but it is not the rule. Land with rarer flood risk outside the designated areas is capable of approval, but requires adapted foundations and module heights — and for a battery storage facility the flood situation is regularly a hard exclusion criterion.

Monument protection and archaeological remains

The monument authority checks whether archaeological remains or the setting of a listed building are affected. In areas of archaeological suspicion it usually requires a preliminary investigation or construction-accompanying observation at the developer's expense. Finds delay the pile driving but rarely prevent the project, because the modules are elevated without deep soil intervention. Where listed buildings are nearby, the issue is the protection of their setting, which may require setbacks or screening planting.

Setback from housing, glare study and the open space planting plan

There is no nationwide minimum distance from residential buildings — unlike wind energy with its state rules. The municipality sets it in the development plan, usually guided by its own criteria catalogue, and as a rule requires screening planting with hedges or tree lines. In practice the required setbacks range from a few dozen to a few hundred metres.

Where residential buildings, roads, railway lines or airfields lie such that module reflections could reach them, a glare study (Blendgutachten) is required. It calculates the glare periods across the year and compares them with the guidance of the Länder Working Group on Immission Control on the measurement and assessment of light emissions. Exceedances can usually be resolved through module tilt, anti-reflective glass or screening. The study is a standard building application document, commissioned and paid for by the developer.

One term landowners stumble over in the building application is the open space planting plan (Freiflächengestaltungsplan): a building document showing how the site will be planted, which existing trees are retained and what the screening actually looks like. Whether it is required depends on the state building code, the designations of the development plan and the practice of the lower nature conservation authority; many district authorities have published their own guidance notes on it. For solar farms it is the point at which the instruction "screening planting" becomes a concrete planting list. It is prepared and paid for by the developer.

Do I even need a building permit? The 16 state building codes compared

Planning law is federal law, building regulations law is state law — and here the differences in 2026 are greater than ever. Since the start of 2025 six states have liberalised ground-mounted PV in building regulations terms; in one state a solar farm no longer needs a building permit at all, in another it always does. No other guide carries this overview in this form, because it changes every few months.

Federal state	Does the solar farm need a building permit?	Provision	Condition / limit	Since
Baden-Württemberg	No — procedure-free, with no size or location limit	§ 50 (1) LBO together with Annex no. 3 (c)	"installations for photovoltaic and thermal solar use including associated enclosures and technical ancillary facilities" — no height, length or area limit	28 June 2025; enclosures and ancillary facilities added March 2026
Bavaria	No in two cases, otherwise yes	Art. 57 (1) no. 3 (a) (bb) and Art. 57 (2) no. 9 BayBO	procedure-free where admissible under § 35 (1) no. 8 BauGB (that is, in the 200-metre corridor, with no size limit) or within the area of a corresponding statute; all other free-standing installations only up to 3 m height / 9 m length. Agri-PV under § 35 (1) no. 9 BauGB is expressly not covered	1 January 2025
Hesse	No for privileged outer-area installations and statute-compliant installations	Annex to § 63 HBO, section I no. 3.9.3	procedure-free "within the scope of § 35 (1) no. 8 (b) or no. 9 BauGB" and within the area of a statute — with no height limit, customary fencing included. The only state with an express agri-PV reference	14 October 2025
Lower Saxony	No within the area of an urban development statute, otherwise yes	§ 60 (1) NBauO together with Annex no. 2.3 (a)	procedure-free only where the statute regulates admissibility, location and size. The 3 m / 9 m variant expressly does not apply in the outer area — without a statute the permit requirement remains there	1 July 2025
Saxony-Anhalt	No within a statute or development plan area, otherwise yes	§ 60 (1) no. 3 (c) BauO LSA	the statute must regulate admissibility, location and size; for § 35 (1) no. 8 (b) cases the exemption from permit under § 61 applies	24 January 2026
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania	No within a development plan area, otherwise yes	§ 61 (1) no. 3 (c) LBauO M-V	the plan must regulate admissibility, location and size; for privileged installations the exemption under § 62 (1) no. 2 applies	June 2026
Thuringia	No within a development plan area, otherwise yes	§ 63 (1) no. 3 (c) ThürBO	"other solar installations within the area of a development plan which contains provisions on the admissibility, location and size of the installation". Citation trap: until the 2024 code this was § 60	ThürBO 2024
Rhineland-Palatinate	In principle yes (simplified procedure), with three exemption routes	§ 61, § 62 (1) no. 2 (e) and (f), § 66 (1) no. 10, § 67 LBauO	since 2025 procedure-free within the area of a statute; without a statute the simplified procedure; exemption procedure for development plans and § 35 (1) no. 8 (b) installations	new version from 1 Nov 2025 / 1 Jan 2026
North Rhine-Westphalia	Yes	§ 60 (1), § 62 (1) no. 3 (b) BauO NRW	procedure-free only free-standing installations up to 3 m height and 100 m² built area (an NRW specificity since 2024). Additionally a nature conservation permit under § 17 BNatSchG	1 January 2024
Saxony	Yes (normal case: simplified procedure under § 63 SächsBO)	§ 61 (1) no. 3 (b) SächsBO	procedure-free only up to 3 m height and 9 m total length per side; within a qualified or project-related development plan, exemption under § 62	—
Brandenburg	Yes	§ 61 (1) no. 3 (b) BbgBO	procedure-free only up to 3 m height and 9 m total length; no statute-based exemption for solar	—
Schleswig-Holstein	Yes	§ 61 (1) no. 3 (b) LBO	procedure-free only up to 3 m height and 9 m side length; within a qualified or project-related development plan, exemption under § 62	LBO 2024
Saarland	Yes	§ 61 (1) no. 3 (b) LBO	procedure-free only up to 3 m height and 12 m total length (a Saarland specificity); exemption under § 63 (3) no. 3 for installations within the scope of § 35 (1) no. 8 (b) BauGB	2025 version
Bremen	Yes	§ 61 (1) no. 3 (b) BremLBO	procedure-free only for installations "subordinate to the use of the plot" up to 3 m / 9 m, and not within the area of local building rules	BremLBO 2024
Berlin	Yes	§ 61 (1) no. 3 (b) BauO Bln	procedure-free only up to 3 m height and 9 m total length; no statute provision for solar	—
Hamburg	Yes, without exception	§ 61 HBauO together with the Annex, section I no. 3 (b)	procedure-free only up to 3 m / 9 m; the exemption under § 62 HBauO covers residential buildings only — a solar farm therefore always needs a building permit, even within a qualified development plan	HBauO 2025

Status of this overview: 22 September 2026. The state building codes are currently being amended frequently — before a concrete project, check the version in force in the relevant state, and remember that procedure-free never means law-free: § 50 (5) LBO Baden-Württemberg puts it most clearly — "procedure-free projects must comply with public law provisions just as projects requiring a permit do." Planning law, species protection, water, monument and soil protection continue to apply; only the prior official check falls away.

Four state types — and a liberalisation wave still under way

General procedure-freedom with no limits: Baden-Württemberg only.
Procedure-freedom where planning law privileges the project: Bavaria (§ 35 (1) no. 8 (b)) and Hesse (§ 35 (1) no. 8 (b) and no. 9).
Procedure-freedom within a statute or development plan area: Bavaria, Hesse, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and, in effect, Rhineland-Palatinate.
No procedure-freedom, only exemption or a full permit: Brandenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony, Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein, Berlin, Bremen — and Hamburg as the only state with no exemption route at all.

The timeline shows this is an ongoing wave: Bavaria on 1 January 2025, Baden-Württemberg in June 2025, Lower Saxony in July 2025, Hesse in October 2025, Saxony-Anhalt in January 2026, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in June 2026. Anyone reading today that a solar farm "always needs a building permit" is reading a statement that no longer holds for a third of the country.

Agri-PV is the exception to the exception: no state building code other than Hesse's has its own agri-PV provision. In Bavaria agri-PV is expressly not procedure-free even though the classic solar farm in the 200-metre corridor is. In Baden-Württemberg it is covered by the unlimited procedure-freedom.

The state opening clause: ten ordinances nobody needs any more

On the second big state question — less-favoured areas — 2026 offers a clear finding that is missing from almost every guide: not a single federal state has made use of the new exclusion option under § 37c EEG. The Federal Network Agency, which runs the auctions, puts it this way on its procedure page: "At present no states have issued corresponding ordinances."

The old opening ordinances of the ten states that had used the clause before Solar Package I have thereby become substantively obsolete — they were issued on the basis of an authorisation that no longer exists in that form. Formally the position is inconsistent:

State	Old ordinance	Old quota	Status September 2026
Bavaria	Bavarian ordinance on bids for ground-mounted installations (part 1 AVEn)	200 bids/year	formally repealed as of 17 Dec 2024 — the only state with a formal repeal
Hesse	Ordinance on bids for ground-mounted solar installations	35 MW/year	expired on 1 Jan 2026 (self-limiting)
Saarland	Ordinance on erecting PV on agricultural land	350 MWp in total	expired on 1 Jan 2026 (self-limiting)
Baden-Württemberg	Open-space opening ordinance (FFÖ-VO)	100 MWp/year	formally in force, but per the environment ministry it "thereby loses its scope of application"
Rhineland-Palatinate	State ordinance on bids for solar installations	200 MWp/year	per the ministry "rendered moot by the federal opt-out rule"
North Rhine-Westphalia	Photovoltaics open-space ordinance (PVFVO)	300 MW/year	formally in force, limited to 31 Dec 2027, substantively obsolete
Lower Saxony	Lower Saxony ground-mounted solar ordinance	500 MWp/year	formally in force, unlimited in time, substantively obsolete
Saxony	Photovoltaics open-space ordinance	180 MW/year	formally in force, substantively obsolete
Saxony-Anhalt	Open-space installations ordinance (FFAVO)	100 MW/year, arable land only	formally in force, substantively obsolete
Thuringia	Thuringian photovoltaics open-space ordinance	180 MWp/year	formally in force, limited to 31 Dec 2027, substantively obsolete

Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein, Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg never had an opening ordinance; there the federal catalogue has applied directly since 16 May 2024.

What follows if someone quotes you a quota: the sentences "Bavaria only allows 200 bids a year" or "Saxony has a 180 MW cap" were once correct and are no longer. If a project developer or a guide is still arguing with them in 2026, they are working from a position that predates May 2024. Conversely, state restrictions certainly exist — but by other routes, through state and regional planning and participation obligations, and without effect on the EEG award.

State guidance documents: what your municipality has probably read

Twelve of the sixteen states have published an official document on ground-mounted PV that municipalities and permitting authorities follow. Knowing them tells you which arguments to expect in the council chamber:

Baden-Württemberg — "Freiflächensolaranlagen: Handlungsleitfaden" (environment ministry, 2019)
Bavaria — the "Planning and permitting ground-mounted PV" platform in the Energie-Atlas Bayern (ongoing), plus "PV-Freiflächen naturverträglich gestalten" (2023) and the LfU practice guide on ecological design
Brandenburg — "Gemeinsame Arbeitshilfe Photovoltaik-Freiflächenanlagen" for municipalities (2023)
Hesse — "Freiflächen-Photovoltaikanlagen aus kommunaler Sicht" (LandesEnergieAgentur, 2024)
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania — "Freiflächen- und Agri-Photovoltaikanlagen und Bauleitplanung" (interior ministry, 2025)
Lower Saxony — planning guidance from the spatial planning perspective (2022) and "Hinweise für einen naturverträglichen Ausbau" (2023)
North Rhine-Westphalia — "Photovoltaik auf Freiflächen: Leitfaden" (NRW.Energy4Climate, 2023) and the "Kurzleitfaden Bauplanungsrechtliche Grundlagen" (for the economics ministry, 2023)
Rhineland-Palatinate — guidance on planning and assessing ground-mounted PV from the spatial planning perspective (2024)
Saxony — "Photovoltaik auf Landwirtschaftsflächen" (regional development ministry, 2024) and "Biodiversität und Freiflächensolaranlagen" (LfULG, 2024)
Saxony-Anhalt — guidance on the spatial steering of large ground-mounted PV installations in municipalities
Schleswig-Holstein — advisory decree "Grundsätze zur Planung von großflächigen Solar-Freiflächenanlagen im Außenbereich" (2024)
Thuringia — "Hinweise zur Planung von Freiflächen-Photovoltaikanlagen" (state administration office, 2023)

Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg and Saarland have published no ground-mounted PV document of their own. At federal level, the "Naturschutzfachliche Mindestkriterien bei PV-Freiflächenanlagen" of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs (2024) and the KNE handbook on calculating compensation requirements for solar park projects, published in its third edition in 2026, are the important complements.

EEG land catalogue, auctions and direct marketing

The approval determines whether building is allowed. Whether building pays is decided, among other things, by the Renewable Energy Sources Act with its land catalogue (Flächenkulisse) in § 37 (1) EEG. Only installations on land within this catalogue can win an auction award and with it a statutorily secured tariff. The catalogue is considerably wider than the building-law privilege — the most overlooked point of the whole topic:

Type of land	Provision	Note
Other structures erected for a purpose other than electricity generation	§ 37 (1) no. 1 EEG	e.g. landfills, noise barriers
Already sealed surfaces	§ 37 (1) no. 2 (a) EEG	—
Conversion sites from economic, transport, housing or military use	§ 37 (1) no. 2 (b) EEG	the classic bonus location, see lease conversion land
Roadside strip of 500 metres along motorways and railway lines	§ 37 (1) no. 2 (c) EEG	not 200 m as in building law — the EEG catalogue reaches 2.5 times as far and requires no two main tracks
Land in development plans adopted before 1 September 2003	§ 37 (1) no. 2 (d) EEG	—
Land designated as commercial or industrial before 1 January 2010	§ 37 (1) no. 2 (e) EEG	—
Land following a plan approval procedure	§ 37 (1) no. 2 (f) EEG	—
Land owned by the Federal Republic / BImA	§ 37 (1) no. 2 (g) EEG	—
Arable land in less-favoured areas	§ 37 (1) no. 2 (h) EEG	excluding Natura 2000 sites and legally protected biotopes
Grassland in less-favoured areas	§ 37 (1) no. 2 (i) EEG	excluding Natura 2000 sites and legally protected biotopes
Special solar installations: agri-PV, peatland PV with rewetting, car-park PV, floating PV	§ 37 (1) no. 3 EEG	own auction sub-segment with its own maximum value

The difference between 200 and 500 metres is the practically most important point in this table — and it is constantly confused. § 37 (1) no. 2 (c) EEG first covers land that "fulfils the conditions set out in § 35 (1) no. 8 (b) of the Federal Building Code" — that is the privileged 200-metre corridor. Beyond that it also covers land which "at the time of the resolution to prepare or amend the development plan lay alongside motorways or railway lines, where the ground-mounted installation is to be erected at a distance of up to 500 metres, measured from the outer edge of the carriageway". Between 200 and 500 metres, therefore: eligible for support yes, privileged no — the municipality has to adopt a development plan. In return the EEG requires no two main tracks and no higher-level network there; any railway line will do.

Land outside the catalogue receives no EEG tariff. That does not make a project impossible — it then has to be financed through direct marketing or a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) and carries the market price risk. For the approval itself the marketing route makes no difference.

Less-favoured areas: the opening clause has become an exclusion clause

This is where the logic has reversed since Solar Package I (in force on 16 May 2024), and many guides online are still on the old footing. Previously: arable land and grassland in less-favoured areas were only eligible if the federal state had issued an opening ordinance — ten states had done so, each with its own annual cap of between 35 and 500 MW. Today the opposite applies: less-favoured areas are in the catalogue nationwide (§ 37 (1) no. 2 (h) and (i) EEG), and § 37c EEG — officially headed "Non-consideration of bids in less-favoured areas; authorisation for the Länder to issue ordinances" — only allows the states to disregard bids in whole or in part by ordinance. The statute names in particular:

a share of ground-mounted installations in the state's agricultural area of more than 1 per cent (before 1 January 2031) or more than 1.5 per cent (thereafter) — states may also set higher values,
land in landscape protection areas and nature parks.

In practice this means for landowners: the fact that your land lies in a less-favoured area is an advantage in 2026, not a permitting problem — but it is worth checking whether your state has made use of the exclusion option. Whether land is classified as a less-favoured area at all follows the EU delimitation (Directive 86/465/EEC and the successor rules of the EAFRD Regulation) and cannot be judged by feel — the ENLAPA area check checks it in seconds against official geodata.

Solar Package I also widened access without an auction: installations up to 1 MW in less-favoured areas (and citizen energy projects up to 6 MW) can receive the statutory tariff without taking part in an auction.

The auction: what an award is worth in 2026

Ground-mounted installations from one megawatt must take part in the Federal Network Agency's auctions. A bid requires a development plan in force or the building-law privilege — the approval is therefore not a bonus but the entry ticket. The orders of magnitude of the most recent rounds in the first (ground-mounted) segment:

Bid date	Volume tendered	Awards	Award values	Maximum value
1 March 2026	2,294,768 kW	268 bids / 2,299,280 kW	3.99 – 5.10 ct/kWh, volume-weighted 4.94 ct/kWh	5.79 ct/kWh
1 July 2026	2,135 MW	261 bids (401 bids totalling 3,170 MW submitted)	4.38 – 4.97 ct/kWh, volume-weighted 4.79 ct/kWh	5.90 ct/kWh

Both rounds were markedly oversubscribed. Two things follow for landowners. First, competition for awards is hard, which forces developers to submit only genuinely viable sites. Second, the lease level hangs on these cent figures — what a hectare of solar farm earns per year and how that translates into rent is calculated in Feed-in tariffs in Germany 2026.

What the "building turbo" and RED III really deliver for solar farms

Two legislative projects from 2025 and 2026 are regularly cited as accelerators for ground-mounted PV. Neither helps your solar farm — and knowing that saves you from raising false expectations with the municipality.

The building turbo (§ 246e BauGB) entered into force on 30 October 2025 and allows municipalities, until 31 December 2030, to deviate from almost all planning law provisions without adopting a development plan. The condition, however, is a project for residential use. A solar farm or a battery storage facility does not qualify.

RED III (Directive (EU) 2023/2413) obliges member states to designate acceleration areas in which the EIA, the specific species protection assessment and the Natura 2000 assessment fall away at the permitting stage; the deadline for this expired on 21 February 2026. The German transposition act entered into force on 15 August 2025 — but it regulates acceleration areas only for wind energy (§ 6b WindBG). The option, still present in the ministerial draft, of designating acceleration areas for solar energy in the land-use plan is no longer in the adopted act. For ground-mounted PV it therefore remains, in 2026, the ordinary planning procedure with a full environmental assessment. Whether the legislature will revisit this is open; a permitting strategy must not rely on it.

Grid connection: the step that decides the project

Without a grid connection there is no project — and unlike the approval, the grid connection is neither negotiable nor easy to plan. The developer submits the grid connection request (Netzanfrage) to the responsible grid operator, who determines at which grid connection point the planned capacity can be fed in, which network reinforcements are required and what the connection costs will be. The confirmation is time-limited and tied to the specific project, so approval and grid connection have to fit together in time.

The responsible operator is the one whose network receives the electricity — for a solar farm usually the medium-voltage grid operator, not the often better-known high-voltage operator of the region. Writing to the wrong address costs weeks.

The grid request does not wait for the resolution to prepare the plan

It is persistently assumed that a grid request presupposes a municipal resolution to prepare the development plan. In the reservation procedures of regional grid operators we reviewed (status of the procedures reviewed: 1 May 2026) that is not the case. What is mandatory in the "submit request" phase is the complete technical data sheets under the applicable technical connection rules, plus one credible piece of evidence that the project is serious — and for that evidence several equally ranked alternatives stand side by side, of which one suffices:

prepared planning bases, that is the planning trigger for the land-use procedure — which exists before any council resolution,
the council paper for the resolution to prepare the plan (outline planning),
the publication of the resolution to prepare the plan,
credible evidence from the draft phase.

The legally effective development plan is only required right at the end, at the binding registration for implementation. Because capacity in these procedures is allocated by order of receipt on a first come, first served basis, waiting is not prudence but a capacity risk: the grid request and the approach to the municipality run in parallel, not one after the other. Some grid operators additionally offer an evidence-free preliminary enquiry (a grid connection monitor) which reserves nothing but shows immediately whether capacity exists at all.

Two pitfalls that cost money in practice: a change of site or parcel triggers a re-assessment of the connection point, and a capacity deviation of more than five per cent upwards requires an entirely new request. The registered capacity figure should therefore be set generously from the outset. The procedures differ considerably from operator to operator — what applies is always the current guidance note of the specifically responsible operator, never an analogy with the neighbouring network.

For landowners the most important metric is the distance to the nearest substation. Land far from the grid or in a congested network area is often harder to realise than land with demanding species protection — and a developer who can already show a grid connection confirmation has removed the project's single largest uncertainty.

Who applies, who pays, who decides

For landowners the allocation of roles is perhaps the single most important piece of information: the application and the costs sit with the project developer, the decision with the municipality, and the landowner pays nothing.

The project developer as applicant

In every step of the procedure the applicant is the developer or the project company it has founded. It applies to the municipality to initiate the development plan procedure, commissions and pays the planning office and all experts, submits the grid request, files the building application and takes part in the auction. The municipality's planning costs are transferred to it through an urban development contract under § 11 BauGB; with a project-related development plan the implementation contract under § 12 BauGB is added.

A well-drafted lease states expressly that planning, approval, construction, operation and decommissioning are entirely at the operator's expense and that the landowner owes nothing if the procedure fails. What else to watch for in the contract is set out in Photovoltaic lease agreement.

The municipality and its planning sovereignty

The municipality decides freely whether to adopt a development plan. There is no legal entitlement to it under § 1 (3) sentence 2 BauGB, and none can be created by contract either. Many municipalities have adopted their own criteria catalogues or open-space concepts setting out which land they are willing to develop at all, how much land in total, what setbacks from settlements apply and what is expected in terms of screening planting, citizen participation or municipal profit sharing. Anyone planning a project should know these resolutions before approaching the municipality — they are usually publicly available in the council information system.

The strongest argument for the municipality: § 6 EEG

Operators of ground-mounted solar installations may offer municipalities within a radius of 2,500 metres of the installation 0.2 cents per kilowatt hour actually fed in, and are reimbursed that amount by the grid operator — so the payment does not burden the operator economically. The rule is voluntary ("may"), but in practice it is almost always part of the package because it noticeably eases approval in the council. For a 20 MWp installation with roughly 20 GWh of annual output that is about 40,000 euros a year across the entire operating life. It does not replace trade tax and is independent of the rent paid to the landowner.

Costs and timeline at a glance

The following table is an orientation from ENLAPA market observation 2026 and not a cost commitment; the ranges depend heavily on project size, location and federal state. The decisive column is the last one.

Item	Order of magnitude	Who pays
Land-use planning (planning office, designations, reasoning)	mid five figures	Developer
Environmental report, species study, impact balance	mid to upper five figures	Developer
Glare study, noise study (for storage), soil survey	lower five figures each	Developer
Grid request, possibly advance payment and grid connection contribution	project-dependent, often six figures	Developer
Building application and administrative fees	four to lower five figures	Developer
Compensation measures and eco-points	project-dependent	Developer
Landowner	0 euros	—

Decommissioning, financial security and construction time

Under § 35 (5) BauGB the operator of a privileged installation must undertake to dismantle it after the permitted use is permanently abandoned and to remove soil sealing. For installations within a development plan the same obligation is written into the urban development contract and the building permit. The authority secures it through a financial guarantee, usually a bank guarantee in the amount of the estimated decommissioning costs.

For landowners that is not enough: the official security serves the authority, not you. Agree in the lease on an additional decommissioning security in your own favour, ideally as an unconditional bank guarantee indexed to construction cost developments — otherwise an operator insolvency leaves you with a field full of foundations.

The actual construction is short compared with the approval: after the start of works it usually takes a few months until the substructure, modules, inverters and transformer station are in place. The cable route to the grid connection point and the grid operator's own works often take longer and run independently of the installation's construction schedule. Construction windows can additionally be constrained by species protection, for instance a clearing ban in the breeding season or requirements on pile driving outside certain months. The whole path from land to commissioning is described in Building a solar park.

Common landowner mistakes in the approval process

Signing exclusivity without a deadline. A reservation or option agreement with no end date ties up the land for years without obliging the developer to deliver anything. Every option belongs with a clear milestone — for example "resolution to prepare the plan within 18 months, otherwise the land reverts".
Mistaking the development plan for the approval. The development plan only creates the building right; construction requires the building permit. Months often lie between the two.
Informing the municipality last. If the council learns of the project from the newspaper, the resolution to prepare the plan becomes considerably harder to obtain.
Ignoring the species survey season. Anyone who agrees in summer and surveys in spring loses a year — that should appear in the developer's schedule before you sign.
Not agreeing your own decommissioning security. See above.
Not checking the grid situation. The distance to the substation and the free capacity decide feasibility more than any soil value.
Accepting permitting costs. Landowners incur none. If the draft contract says otherwise, that is a warning sign.

What landowners can check themselves in advance

Before speaking to a project developer it is worth looking at the hard criteria: is the land in a protected area, a flood area or woodland? Is it in the EEG catalogue, for instance as a less-favoured area or within the 500-metre strip along a motorway or railway line? Is it even within the 200-metre strip of the building-law privilege — and outside the 40-metre no-build zone? How far is the nearest substation, and would a battery storage facility therefore also be an option?

These are exactly the questions the free ENLAPA area check answers in seconds from official geodata — no email, no callback. If there is no exclusion criterion, a conversation with the municipality about its stance on ground-mounted installations is the sensible next step, because without municipal support no project comes into being.

Frequently asked questions about ground-mounted solar approval

Conclusion

Approving a ground-mounted solar installation is no mystery in 2026, but a procedure with two clearly separated routes. If your land lies within the 200-metre strip along a motorway or a multi-track railway line, a building permit is enough; if it lies anywhere else, the municipality decides through a development plan, and that takes one to three years. New since 23 December 2025 is the third case: a battery storage facility within 200 metres of a substation is privileged and likewise needs no development plan — for grid-adjacent land this is frequently the faster and better-paid route. In every case: the application, the studies and the costs are borne by the project developer, the technical assessments on species, water and monument protection always remain, and the biggest time driver is rarely the town hall but the vegetation period and grid capacity.

Whether your land is privileged, sits in the EEG catalogue, touches a protected area and how far away the nearest substation is, is shown by the free ENLAPA area check in a few seconds. If you then want to know without obligation what project developers would pay for your land, you can list it here and collect lease offers from vetted developers. The overview of all land types is at lease land for a solar park, the storage variant at lease land for battery storage.

Sources: Federal Building Code (§§ 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, 30, 35, 36, 246e BauGB), Federal Land Use Ordinance (§§ 11, 19 BauNVO), Renewable Energy Sources Act (§§ 6, 19, 37, 37c, 48 EEG), Environmental Impact Assessment Act (Annex 1 nos. 18.7 and 18.8 UVPG), Federal Nature Conservation Act (§§ 14, 30, 34, 44, 67 BNatSchG), Federal Water Act (§ 78 WHG), Federal Trunk Roads Act (§ 9 FStrG), Energy Industry Act (§§ 11c, 17, 118 EnWG), the 4th Ordinance implementing the Federal Immission Control Act (Annex 1), the Ordinance on Installations Handling Water-Hazardous Substances (§§ 3, 20 AwSV) and the Technical Instructions on Noise Abatement (TA Lärm, nos. 6.1 and 6.4), each in the version in force on 22 September 2026 per gesetze-im-internet.de. Battery storage privilege: Act amending energy industry law of 18 December 2025 (BGBl. 2025 I no. 347) and the Act accelerating the expansion of geothermal installations, heat pumps and heat storage of 22 December 2025 (BGBl. 2025 I no. 348), both in force on 23 December 2025. Solar Package I: Act of 8 May 2024 (BGBl. 2024 I no. 151), in force on 16 May 2024. Building turbo: § 246e BauGB, in force on 30 October 2025. RED III: Directive (EU) 2023/2413 and the German transposition act, in force on 15 August 2025. Auction results: Federal Network Agency, solar auction first segment, bid dates 1 March 2026 and 1 July 2026; status of state ordinances under § 37c EEG: Federal Network Agency procedure page (retrieved 22 September 2026). State building codes: LBO Baden-Württemberg, BayBO, HBO, NBauO, BauO LSA, LBauO Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, ThürBO, LBauO Rhineland-Palatinate, BauO NRW, SächsBO, BbgBO, LBO Schleswig-Holstein, LBO Saarland, BremLBO, BauO Berlin and HBauO, each as at 22 September 2026; repeal of the Bavarian open-space ordinance: GVBl. Bavaria 2024 no. 23. Battery storage safety: BVES safety guide for lithium-ion large storage systems, 3rd edition of 20 November 2025; vfdb guidance note TWB-02 of February 2025; guidance note of the Federal-State Working Group on handling water-hazardous substances concerning lithium-ion batteries, 29 May 2024. Noise figures: noise study for the development plan "Batteriespeichersystem Herbitzheim", municipality of Gersheim, 2024. Grid connection: Federal Court of Justice, order of 15 July 2025 (case EnVR 1/24); Federal Network Agency, decisions BK6-25-325 of 30 March 2026 and BK6-25-287 of 4 May 2026. Information on the grid connection request: ENLAPA's review of the reservation procedures of regional grid operators applicable from 1 May 2026. Cost and duration figures: ENLAPA market observation 2026, guide values. As of 22 September 2026. This article gives a general overview and does not replace legal advice; procedures and requirements differ by federal state, district and municipality. Have your specific lease reviewed by a lawyer before signing.