30.10.2024.

The Chinese VE in Croatia cannot get a use permit because of the noise

The largest wind power plant (VE) in Croatia with a capacity of 156 megawatts, which was symbolically put into trial operation in 2021 by the Prime Minister Andrej Plenković himself with the Chinese Norinc, cannot obtain a use permit due to noise. This is the first major Chinese investment in Croatia of around 200 million euros.
The largest wind farm in Croatia - VE Senj, which is owned by the Chinese state-owned company Norinco International Cooperation - has not yet received a license for use due to the noise generated by the wind turbines, as Forbes Croatia has learned, and it has already been two years since the wind farm was put into trial operation.
This was confirmed for Forbes Croatia by the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Construction and State Property.
They replied that several technical inspections were held, and at one of them the documents for the installation of the equipment were checked, which included checking the noise level produced by the wind turbines and the installed equipment.
 
They were stopped by the sanitary inspection
"The State Inspectorate, Sector of Sanitary Inspection, the public legal body responsible for noise protection, after inspecting the documentation and inspection supervision, submitted its opinion in a separate Minutes in which it was stated that the conditions for the implementation of noise protection measures were not met. The investor, for the purpose of obtaining a use permit, is obliged to eliminate the mentioned deficiency and obtain a positive opinion from the competent body, the sanitary inspection. This Ministry cannot comment in which way, that is, with which technical solutions, the investor will eliminate the mentioned deficiency and harmonize the documentation."
 
From their response, it remained unclear how long the wind farm can be in trial operation. They answered, namely, only that, in accordance with the Law on Construction, "in the event of the need to test the fulfillment of the basic requirements for the building provided for in the main project, the test work is carried out before the technical inspection, and for the purpose of issuing a use permit".
The construction of VE Senj was an investment of around 200 million euros, and in 2022 alone, the company that manages the wind farm, Energija Projekt, based in Senj, had an income of 100 million euros and a profit of 61.4 million euros. The data for the year 2023 has not been published, and the company did not respond to Forbes Croatia's questions about the technical inspection and use permit and whether the problem is noise. According to the information that was published earlier, the wind turbines for that power plant were produced by Shanghai Electric.
VE Senj is not part of the incentive system, but has been selling electricity at market prices since the beginning. It is a wind farm with 39 wind turbines, each with a power of 4 megawatts, that is, a power plant with a total capacity of 156 megawatts and an area of 65 square kilometers. Of these, 29 wind turbines are in the area of the town of Senj, and 10 in the area of the municipality of Brinje, so those two local communities have the right to compensation, or rent, for the use of space.
They pay rent to the City of Senj and the Municipality of Brinje
"All claims have been collected and rent is paid every 15th of the month for the previous month. The annual rent is 500,000 euros, and it depends on the electricity produced," answered the mayor of Senj, Jurica Tomljanović, to Forbes Croatia's inquiry. He claims that he is not informed about whether the wind power plant has a usage permit or not, but also that they are "in regular communication" with them.
And the Mayor of Brinje Zlatko Fumić confirms that they receive monthly payments from electricity production at the Senj Power Plant. However, the fact that there was a delay regarding the payment is indicated by his clarification that in September the municipality reached an agreement with the companies Norinco and Energija Projekt "and realized the payment of the fee for the electricity produced since the start of the operation of the wind farm". The chief did not reveal the amount involved.
 
According to the Government's Decision on the fee for the use of space used by production facilities for the production of electricity, adopted in 2013, the amount of the fee is HRK 0.01 per kilowatt hour. It is planned that VE Senj with its capacity annually produces 530 million kilowatt hours of electricity.
Neither Tomljanović nor Fumić mentioned that there would be a problem with noise.
A problematic criterion with decibels
We asked Bojan Reščec, president of the HGK Wind Energy Group, about this, who did not want to comment on the specific case of the Senj wind power plant, but confirmed that investors have a problem with part of the criteria from the current rulebook, which refers to the permitted level of noise in relation to residual noise ( the one that is present in a place before the actual construction, the so-called zero state).
He explains that it is often very difficult to fulfill this criterion because the investor must not raise the noise level by more than one decibel compared to the zero state. "That is extremely small, especially if you take into account that the measuring devices are accurate to +-2 decibels," says Reščec.
He adds that the general values of the maximum permissible noise in an open space (and they are listed in the table in the Rulebook on the maximum permissible noise levels with regard to the type of noise source, time and place of origin) can easily be respected if the wind farm is moved far enough away from the settlement. However, it often happens that the so-called the construction areas of the settlement are actually long-abandoned, uninhabited houses, "so it is questionable how much it is necessary to include such proven abandoned and uninhabited houses in noise studies at wind power plants".
What is the case in Senj, we were not able to find out because the Energija project did not answer our specific questions, but they invited us to visit the wind power plant and during the tour of the facility, the engineers explained to us in more detail what we were interested in.
 
In any case, the HGK Wind Energy Group proposes a solution through the "lex specialis", like the one in the case of the Zagreb cable car, whereby the highest permitted noise levels from the table would remain as a criterion.
 
Plenković let them go on a trial run
In November 2017, the Chinese Norinco International signed an agreement on the acquisition of a 76% share of the company Energija Projekt (owned by Aleksandar Džombić), which until then was developing the VE Senj project, and according to what was published in the media at the time, the Chinese paid for it. 32 million euros. The "ceremonial opening of the project", as Norinco describes the beginning of the works on its website, was held a year later in the presence of Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, the Chinese ambassador to Croatia, and Wang Yitong, Vice President of Norinco. This happened at the time of political intensification of relations with China, when Plenković also visited that country, and in 2019, Croatia hosted a summit meeting between China and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in Dubrovnik.
The wind farm was officially opened at the beginning of December 2021 - which was accompanied by a ceremony in Zagreb and Plenković, the Chinese investor and the ambassador "remotely" put the plant into trial operation - and the plan is to use it operationally for at least 23 years.
 
On Velebit, near Senj, there is also the 42 megawatt Vrataruša wind power plant, the first wind power plant in Croatia that is connected to the grid, and has been in full operation since 2011. Its expansion is also planned, as can be seen from the Register of renewable energy sources and cogeneration and privileged producers.
 

CONCLUSION

 

The use of Chinese equipment for the construction of wind farms is an issue to which the European Union pays special attention. Truth be told, primarily due to the generous government subsidies of the Chinese government to equipment manufacturers there, and the example from Croatia, a member of the European Union, shows that unfair competition is not the only problem when it comes to Chinese manufacturers. The European Union has very strict standards when it comes to protecting the human environment, especially when it comes to the production of green energy. It is precisely the fact that the Chinese investor cannot reduce the level of noise that exceeds the permitted limits that resulted in the non-issuance of a use permit, because the Chinese investor is unable to comply with the provisions on the amount of noise.

This text illustrates how the EU member states treat investors who do not respect environmental standards, while in most countries of the Western Balkans such behavior by the authorities is rare.

Despite numerous warnings from the media and non-governmental organizations about violations of environmental regulations by Chinese investors, in the countries of the Western Balkans, the authorities, most often, do not use the legal mechanisms at their disposal to force Chinese investors to implement environmental protection measures.