It proposes stricter new planning rules for the construction of wind turbines, requires higher energy storage requirements for renewable energy projects and withdraws rules requiring certain land areas to be used for wind energy.

AfD candidates are also flooding their social media pages with posts about how renewable energy is driving up consumers’ energy bills.

The AfD is unlikely to be able to form a government as the other parties oppose a coalition with it. But given its share of the vote, the AfD could shift the mainstream discourse on wind energy, as it did on the issue of migration, and thus slow down the implementation of projects, pollsters and analysts say.

“We will immediately ensure, economically speaking, that no more wind turbines are built here in Saxony,” said Jan Zwerg, the AfD’s energy policy spokesman in Saxony.

In addition, the AfD could push forward laws against wind power from the opposition, as it has already tried to do with the conservatives in Thuringia.

This, in turn, could jeopardise Germany’s overall energy transition goals, as the eastern German states offer the necessary space for the expansion of wind power infrastructure due to their lower population density.

“The success of the energy transition will be decided in the East. But it is precisely here that sensitive resistance has developed, which the AfD is increasingly mobilizing politically,” says Matthias Diermeier, researcher at the IW Cologne.

MAJOR BACKSHOOT

Almost a third of the rural population in eastern Germany rejects wind power, while in rural western Germany the figure is only 17.7 percent, according to a study by the Institute of Economics in Cologne and the Technical University of Dresden. Among AfD voters, the rejection rate is around 50 percent.

In Saxony, support for the energy transition has fallen from 49 percent in 2021 to 40 percent in 2023, according to a survey conducted by the state’s Ministry of the Environment and Energy in September.

In villages like Chemnitz-Euba, where a citizens’ initiative is opposed to the construction of two wind turbines because it fears a loss of value and destruction of the landscape, residents are increasingly voting for the AfD.

“This is not about right or left. This is simply about a story that affects us all,” said Frank Stühler, chairman of the initiative, at an information event attended by hundreds of concerned citizens. He will therefore be voting for the AfD for the first time.

Some investors are put off by the political climate; they are afraid of lengthy disputes with citizens’ initiatives and district councils.

A spokesman for a Saxon wind power developer, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters that the prioritization of projects is now based on how well the AfD is doing in the polls in the individual regions.

In Saxony and Thuringia, the expansion of wind turbines is already lagging behind: According to the state’s wind energy association, only 16 new turbines will be built in these two federal states in 2023 – out of a total of 745 installed in all 16 federal states.

HIGHER PRICES

In its election manifesto for Saxony, the AfD proposes strict measures to curb the expansion of wind energy. This includes, for example, a regulation that requires wind turbines to be built at a distance of ten times the height of the turbines from residential areas.

The wind power association explained that the distance regulation would severely restrict the construction of new plants. In Saxony, 41 projects with 882 turbines were approved in July of this year, it said in a statement.

The AfD also claims that the expansion of renewable energies is driving up energy prices in Saxony – an argument that appeals to many. The expansion of transmission and distribution networks could lead to higher network fees, said two energy market experts.

Adjusted for purchasing power, electricity and heating prices in the east are already 22 percent higher than in the west of Germany, as calculations by the electricity price portal Verivox show.

Even if the AfD were in opposition, it could still push for restrictions on wind power in parliament – ​​especially since the likely voter fragmentation in the upcoming elections is likely to make it difficult to form stable governments.

“They (the AfD) have been working for ten years to shift the debate and we see that resistance is growing among the population. The fact that they are succeeding in doing this should not be underestimated,” said Diermeier.

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Riham Alkousaa is an energy and climate change correspondent for Reuters in Germany, covering the green transition of Europe’s largest economy and the European energy crisis. Alkousaa is a graduate of Columbia University’s journalism school and has 10 years of experience as a journalist covering the European refugee crisis and the Syrian civil war for publications such as Der Spiegel Magazine, USA Today and the Washington Times. Alkousaa was a member of two teams that won the Reuters Journalist of the Year award in 2022 for their coverage of the European energy crisis and the Ukraine war. She has also won the Foreign Press Association Award in New York in 2017 and the White House Correspondent Association Scholarship in the same year.