Keen to become independent of Russian energy flows and amid pressure from the federal government in Berlin, Bavaria’s ruling party has decided to water down the state’s damaging distance rule for onshore wind that will allow space for some 800 new turbines.

The so-called 10H distance rule enacted in 2014 in most cases had banned new wind farms to be built at a distance from the next human settlement of less than ten times the tip height of a wind turbine.