Wind Farm Reequipment: DGEG Clarifies No New Licensing Is Required
A DGEG explanatory note confirms that replacing wind turbines without changing the footprint area is a non-substantial change, exempt from new prior-control procedures.
DGEG (Directorate-General for Energy and Geology) issued an explanatory note defining reequipment as the total or partial replacement of a renewable power plant's generating equipment, provided the pre-existing footprint area is not altered — classified as a non-substantial change, exempt from any new prior-control procedure or EIA-screening assessment.
Footprint-area criterion for wind farms
For wind farms, the pre-existing footprint area corresponds to the imaginary line connecting the centre of all turbines and the farm's substation (or of each cluster), plus a 150-metre band on each side of that line, within which all ground-level reequipment infrastructure must be contained.
- No new prior-control procedure or new impact assessment is required
- Existing exploration and production titles remain valid, provided legal limits are respected
- Facilitates technological modernisation of wind farms, reducing administrative costs and timelines