Brandenburg’s Minister President Dietmar Woidke has now handed Tesla the final environmental permit for Giga Berlin in Grnheide. The permit states, among other things, that production can only begin if Tesla meets the conditions in a 536-page document.
The German newspaper leaked information about the granting of the permit last week. Handelsblatt. Now, the government has confirmed the approval and given Tesla a document detailing the steps to take before production.
Woidke announced the granting of the permit at the State Chancellery in Potsdam along with together with Brandenburg’s Environment Minister Axel Vogel, Economics Minister Jrg Steinbach, and Ulrich Stock, who heads the State Office for the Environment (LfU).
Woidke stated to journalists that the Tesla task force had given the environmental permit to the Tesla task group when they met on Friday for the 27th consecutive time. The notice of approval document consists of 66 files. These 23,000 pages contain more than 400 conditions and requirements for operation. “Even if it sounds a lot at first, this is not extraordinary,” Vogel said. “From the size of the plant arises the necessity of having to lay down a great many conditions.” He added that one did not let public attention rush the process. “It couldn’t be done any faster.”
Stock, the head of LfU’s department, stated that the plant would need to be operational before it could be deemed safe. In order to do this, measuring equipment would need to be installed. They would then be checked during an acceptance testing. Tesla had set a target of two weeks for the corresponding work as well as the submission of plans. This would still allow enough time for the planned date for the opening ceremony on 22 March or 23 March.
The Brandenburg Minister of Economic Affairs Steinbach thanked Tesla’s representatives for their cooperation over the last two years, two months and two weeks since the first application was submitted back in December 2019. He said that Brandenburg had been put on the map by the gigafactory and that there were many other inquiries from the sector of renewable energy. He said that the approval is “not an end point, but an intermediate step in the further development”.
Woidke emphasized the importance of the plant to the Brandenburg area. He said he thought people will look back on this time “as the time before Tesla and a time with Tesla.” He said: “We will only see in a few years or decades how significant this step really was.”
The state chancellery seems to be in control of everything, but there is one more hurdle. If the Strausberg Erkner water board does not receive a water law permit, it will have to cancel the supply agreement with Tesla. “If we lose the permit quantities for the Eggersdorf water supply tomorrow, then of course the next step for us is that we will have to terminate the supply contract with Tesla because the quantities are no longer available,” WSE spokesperson Sandra Ponesky told the German Press Agency (DPA).Thursday
The Administrative Court of Frankfurt is currently hearing the lawsuit brought by the environmental associations Grne Liga, and Nabu against the issuance of the water law permit by the State Office for the Environment. This also includes the gigafactory.
Sebastian Schaal reports from the livestream press conference, teslarati.com