Community Dialogue for Suedlink

 

TenneT's "Community dialogue for SuedLink" is a communication strategy encompassing local participation in the form of info-marts that allow for on-the-ground dialogue and involve citizens in the planning of SuedLink.

 

Objectives:

• Build an "equal-to-equal" communication strategy in order to manage the high levels of opposition to the project
• Increase acceptability among local people
• Increase the participation of local people in the grid expansion
• Avoid crisis situations

 

Main information:

In order to find a corridor that is agreeable to a large portion of the people affected by SuedLink, TenneT developed a concept for info markets that were subsequently held in 22 towns along the planned line. They took place within a period of 3 months and involved 15 to 20 experts on the ground. The markets were designed as dialogue-based information and participation meeting points. Easy-to-understand overviews were presented on posters and experts were ready to provide further explanations or technical details. People could give general feedback as well as suggest concrete corridor routes on dedicated feedback forms. All reasonable corridor alternatives were later included in the application for Federal Sectoral Planning at the Federal Network Agency.

Each info market attracted around 300 visitors and approximately 3,000 written feedback forms were collected, most of which (around 62%) came from individual actors or citizens.
The initial results from a poll conducted at the events show that 63% of info market visitors said that the event made SuedLink more transparent and understandable to them. 71% made use of the opportunity to actively participate.

 

Additional information:

• The "SuedLink project" is the main wind power line project in Germany. With a total lenght of about 800 km, it is the largest infrastructure project being constructed in the context of the German energy transition. With a transmission capacity of 4 GW, the power transmission line will create the urgently needed link between the renewable energy generated in the north and the consumer centres in the south of Germany
• "Community Dialogue for SuedLink" has already won two awards at the IPRA Golden World Awards 2014 - for the "Best crisis Communication" and the "Best Community Relations"