Two years after announcing there would be discomfort compensation payments for wind turbines located in the vicinity of residential properties, the relevant amounts and payment mechanisms have been finally approved, and come into force on 30 August 2024.

Below are the main points you need to know if you are a developer or a prospective operator of a wind farm, or a resident whose property is located near a wind farm under development.

If you are a developer or a prospective operator of a wind farm, you need to know that:

  • the payments will apply to wind turbines with capacities starting from 1 MW (irrespective of the height of the wind turbine, or whether its location is inland or offshore)
  • the payment amount is EUR 2,500 per MW (also incomplete) of the installed capacity per year (i.e., for a wind turbine with a capacity of 6.5MW, payment would equal EUR 2,500 x 7 = EUR 17,500). The plan is to revise this amount every five years based on the indexation model, which will be developed separately. In case of extraordinary circumstances in the state economy, the amount could be revised sooner.
  • the payments will be administered by the local municipality where the wind turbines are located (or by multiple municipalities if the wind farm is located in several different municipalities), who will collect and distribute these sums to the residents who qualify for the compensation
  • the payment will be made yearly by 1 March for the previous year of operation to the local municipality’s bank account available online. The payments will be made starting with the year following the start of operations and during the full lifecycle of the wind turbines, i.e., until they are dismantled and the relevant area has been put in order.
  • payment will be due only for the wind turbines that are commissioned and connected to the transmission or distribution network starting from 30 August 2024 (thus, it will apply to wind farms currently in development), and would apply to wind turbines connected earlier only in case of upgrading the capacity of such wind turbines or increasing the number of the wind turbines in the wind farm after 30 August 2024 (in case of increase of wind turbines, compensation is payable only for the new wind turbines)

If you are an owner of a residential property, you need to know that:

  • compensation will be paid to members of the households who are natural persons, and its total will vary from one (with exceptions, for which the amount can be lower) to a maximum of three minimum wages (i.e., currently between EUR 700 and EUR 2,100), and, as compensation, it will be exempted from the application of income tax
  • to receive compensation, you need to comply with all of the following criteria:
    a) be recognised as a household, i.e., a natural person or persons who use the property as their place of residence and do not perform any economic activities therein under the understanding of taxation laws (e.g., if the property is used as a place of commercial activities or a legal entity’s registered address, it will not qualify for the compensation)
    b) own the residential property, i.e., the apartment property or residential house: (i) which was commissioned prior to the receipt of the building permit for the wind turbine, (ii) is not a destroyed or degraded structure, and (iii) which is located, in full or at least a 0.001% proportion thereof, within a 2 km radius of the onshore wind turbine, or within a 2 km radius from the point on the coastline from which an offshore wind turbine is located to a distance of up to 25 km in internal sea waters, territorial sea or exclusive economic zone. Non-residential properties and properties commissioned later or not commissioned at all will not qualify for this compensation.
    c) have your ownership rights registered in the Land Register (in case of joint ownership the compensation will be split between the co-owners evenly, i.e., not based on the number of shares owned)
    d) d) none of the household members will have ownership or possession rights to the wind turbines, nor may they have transferred the possession of the land for the construction and operation of the wind turbines to its owner (i.e., land owners who have leased their land for wind farm purposes will not qualify for the compensation even if they live within the radius of compensation)

The range of persons entitled to the compensation shall be determined based on data from the public registers collected by the administering municipality, i.e., no specific application is needed to receive the compensation.

This compensation will also be paid if the wind turbine is located in a neighbouring municipality, provided that the prerequisites on distance and other subjects [WM1] are met.

The residents of the municipality will also benefit from improvements to the infrastructure, and the nature preservation and energy efficiency measures implemented by the local municipalities at cost of the part of compensation attributable to them[WM2], and the relevant data will also be made available publicly on a yearly basis to ensure transparency.

The above regulation has been long awaited, since the law provided that such payments would already be established in 2022. Finally, there is a legal framework which will allow investors and wind farm developers to calculate their investments more precisely. However, as with any new regulation, questions regarding its applicability (or even its validity) will definitely arise. If you have some already, please do not hesitate to reach out to us!