German municipality pioneers land pooling model for utility-scale BESS

The city of Laichingen in Baden-Württemberg has set up a land pooling community to support construction of a large BESS. Employing a strategy already used for wind farm projects, the municipality has pooled together land parcels to develop a large-scale BESS through a public-private sector partnership.

Freiburg-based consulting company Endura Kommunal has been working with Laichingen to support its land pooling efforts. Endura Kommunal has experience pooling land in many German municipalities for wind projects and the company was able to provide a blueprint for how to proceed.

“Established procedures such as municipal area pooling and the expression of interest procedure can also be successfully used in large-scale battery storage projects,” explained Jan Friedrich, senior consultant at Endura Kummunal. Essentially, the pooling process aims to bring municipal and private landowners together to share the benefits from a proposed BESS development.

Pooling land doesn’t just have potential to create more viable sites; it can also strengthen the negotiating hand of the community of landowners now pooled together. “Everyone in the pool benefits, whether the area is cultivated or not,” said Robin Menholy, head of the office of building, environment and urban development for the city of Laichingen.

There is a chance that proposed projects do not go ahead and decisions such as choosing a project developer must now be made by a collective, rather than a single landowner. To support decision making, the municipality acts as moderator of the land pool, formulating criteria for the selection of a project developer. In the case of Laichingen, eight offers were received and are currently being evaluated with Endura Kommunal.

A contract is expected to be concluded that meets the pooling community’s criteria as a result. The large-scale BESS project has a grid connection date scheduled for 2031.