‘They spent €38,000 on printing’: A WindEurope chief's mission to fix ‘crazy’ EU permitting

How many Polish institutions does it take to approve an offshore wind farm? Eighty-nine. How much money did a developer spend on printing documents for a project in Sicily? €38,000. WindEurope’s deputy CEO is describing the “crazy” world of EU permitting and her fight to fix it.

Consider a permitting official in a small, rural EU municipality. They deal with everything from new roads, buildings and home extensions. They may have one or two colleagues. They may have none.

Overwhelmed by “really complex” projects that require local officials “putting themselves in the shoes of an expert,” they may switch off entirely and decide they are not going to look at it.

WindEurope estimated last year that around 80GW of wind projects were stuck in permitting queues.

That has helped considerably, with Germany top of the class, having permitted 10GW of onshore wind projects already this year. Bartosik predicts it could hit as high as 13GW by January.

However, only Denmark has to-date fully transposed the new EU law into national legislation, resulting in the EU Commission issuing infringement notices against the 26 other member states – including star student Germany.

‘Authorities digitalising problems, not finding solutions’

While the EU Commission is busy pushing its member states on implementation, WindEurope has been working on digitalisation.

“To optimise the process, we have to digitalise,” said Bartosik. “And it’s not happening."

In many countries, the law requires that certain documents are “received personally by someone,” said Bartosik. And they don’t have “electronic signatures, so you can’t send the PDF. You actually have to come and bring the registered letter,” she said. “It’s crazy. It's really crazy.”

Where digitalising is happening, it’s often not happening in a helpful way, she said.

“Often the public authority will digitalise the problem instead of coming up with a digitalisation solution,” she said. “Now, it’s not a truck that’s coming, but it’s the same amount of information – in a PDF.”

After years of consultations, WindEurope realised the key is providing “practical tools” that different organisations can use to streamline the process.

“When I say different organisations, do you know how many different entities are involved in permitting an offshore wind farm in Poland?” asked Bartosik. “Eighty-nine.”

Having that many organisations involved in permitting one project is, to put it mildly, sub-optimal. But Bartosik said that it is not necessarily about trying to “combine” all these entities (although to an extent that is obviously desirable), as the same effect can be achieved virtually.

“You can create one platform” that all these entities can use. You work with templates, automate the process, clean up exactly what information is needed, when and by whom, she said. “It's so easy, so easy.”

Narrowing down what information is needed, and just as crucially what isn’t, is key, said Bartosik. Developers currently send “huge files” to permitting authorities “to make sure that they are not accused that some information is missing.”

This can be taken to absurd levels, with Bartosik recalling a renewables developer who spent €38,000 ($41,000) on printing out documents during a permitting process for a project in Sicily.

‘Lego block approach’ to breaking down permitting process

In a bid to end the worst of these absurdities, WindEurope has teamed up with tech giant Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary and business services group Accenture to develop an online platform to streamline the permitting process.

This tool, called EasyPermits, promises to help standardise workflows, help capture only the necessary information and provide a portal through which developers and permitting agents can easily monitor the status of projects.

When WindEurope spoke to permitting authorities while designing the platform, Bartosik said they came to understand that the permitting process – whether for onshore wind, solar or a house extension – has “very similar building blocks.”

“So the tool that we've developed, it can actually work, with a bit of adaptation, for anything. Any permitting process.”

EasyPermits breaks down the permitting process into virtual “Lego blocks," she said. These blocks can be added and subtracted to accommodate new technologies or the requirements of a given municipality or country.

Winning the hearts and minds of permitting agents does not come easy. The initial reaction of many to the platform was to say “I don’t like technology, I don’t even have a smartphone,” said Bartosik. “They were very reluctant.”

WindEurope has been trialling EasyPermits in Denmark and Bartosik recalled the story of a local permitting agent called Jacob who attended workshops the industry body was conducting. “He was sitting in there like ‘I don’t like it, I don’t like it. This is not going to help.’”

“Six months later, he was with us in Dubai, at COP, sitting on every panel saying ‘I think every government should use it, I think every permitting authority should work with it.’”

Permitting platform now 'stuck' in its own development process

Having won the heart and mind of Jacob at the very least, WindEurope is now trying to win crucial funding for its tool from the EU.

There has been huge interest in the platform, she said. “I have one call a day from someone asking, ‘I heard about this tool. Could we start using it?’”

The answer for now is no, said Bartosik, as the tool is “stuck” in its own development process, specifically as it chases financing.

WindEurope wants to avoid commercial investment so that it does not “solve one barrier by creating another” through prohibitive costs for the platform. To that end, WindEurope has struck a deal with the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT), a public-private institution, to invest in it.

Now, the trade body needs to persuade the European Commission to “embrace” the tool and grant it seed funding that will go to the EIT to help get the platform off the ground. A company will then be created that can enter into contracts with entities that want to use it.

Bartosik said she has been “collecting in my spare time” signatures of organisations endorsing EasyPermits to send to the European Commission. “By the end of the year, I hope we will be able to have formal yes from the Commission, and then beginning of next year, set up a new company.”