The development of wind power is being prevented primarily for economic and political reasons even though the potential for producing cheap, clean power from wind in the Czech Republic is enormous. We can look to Austria and Poland for examples.
Those who travel by train from Brno to Vienna immediately recognize the border between Austria and the Czech Republic. As soon as the train leaves behind Břeclav and the floodplains and forests around the Dyje River, the view opens up to reveal a set of several dozen wind power turbines between the winemaking villages of Großkrut and Allichtenwarth in Austria.
The Lower Austrian landscape is sprinkled with wind power plants from the Czech border to Vienna. Hundreds of wind turbines transform the force of flowing air into electrical power supplying millions of businesses and households — wind contributes 14 % of total electrical power production in Austria. Just a few meters over the Czech side of the border there are no wind turbines to be found — as if in the Czech Republic the wind doesn’t blow at all.
In the Czech Republic, just 1 % of the electrical power consumed is produced by wind turbines, and according to data from the Energy Regulation Authority, their installed output has basically not changed since 2019. Poland has doubled the output of its wind power plants since 2019 from 5,836 megawatts to 10,276 megawatts in 2024. Even in that country, with such a strong reputation for coal consumption, wind turbines cover 13 % of the electricity consumed. For comparison, the output of all 200 wind power plants in the Czech Republic is just 352 megawatts.
According to a study by David Hanslian of the Institute for Atmospheric Physics at the Academy of Sciences, we could build as many as 1,400 wind turbines with an installed output of 7,000 megawatts in the Czech Republic by the year 2040.
Studies claim that if the Czech public wants to use wind power, “a realistic scenario for coverage is approximately 10-25 % of annual electricity consumption could be produced by wind power.” The studies also claim that “should there be strong, society-wide support for wind power (or less electricity consumed), the proportion of power produced by wind could be even higher.”
These studies also claim that the potential for wind power “is so great that it theoretically could cover all of our power needs, or at the very least a decisive proportion of them, and not just on the scale of humanity and the planet as a whole, but also within the framework of the limited space of the Czech Republic, its population and its economy.”
The Czech Republic is, therefore, fatally falling behind in this regard, with just 1 % of power production coming from wind. It is not only falling behind its own potential, but also falling behind its closest neighbors. This is yet another reason we pay high prices for power and continue to burn coal or natural gas, contributing to destabilizing the planet’s climate. Why is that?
We urgently need wind power
The power base in our country was established by the regime of state socialism during the last century and was maintained for decades without any larger structural transformations by the regime after the 1989 transition to democracy and a market economy, primarily exploiting the burning of coal and the fission of nuclear fuel for power. However, such a model is unsustainable in the conditions of climate change and growing international tensions, and what’s more, it is too expensive.
The Czech Republic therefore urgently needs to develop renewable sources of power, to beef up its transmission system, and to increase its potential to store energy in collaboration with our European partners, saving power and then using it in a timely way when enough is available. However, this model will only work if we build enough wind turbines.
Wind power in particular is an energy source that is important to the balance of electrification systems on a seasonal and even on a daily basis. Wind power can be exploited the most in winter, when the wind is strongest and most stable, while in the summer the production of solar power rises. Both sources, therefore, complement each other quite appropriately. Moreover, the power production from wind power plants correlates well with the increased consumption of power from heat pumps during the winter.
Renewables play a crucial role in many countries today: For example, Portugal covered 95 % of its monthly power consumption this April from clean sources. The power network there did not collapse as a result.
The false argument of geography
At first glance, the reason the development of Czech wind power is lagging might seem clear: Compared to Denmark, the Netherlands or Poland, we have no coast, nor do we have expansive enough lowlands with the appropriate constancy and force of wind flow to take advantage of wind turbines full-time.
Coastal sea breezes are the most stable source of wind power, though. If two identical turbines of the same height, with the same blade size, the same generators and the same output were to be installed, one in the sea near Copenhagen, Denmark and one on the windiest hill near Jihlava in the Czech Republic, it’s very likely that the Denmark turbine would produce exponentially more electrical power than the one in the Vysočina Region.
Despite this, it makes sense to build such turbines in the Czech Republic. According to the study from the Institute for Atmospheric Physics, it is possible to build more than 200 turbines in the Vysočina Region by 2040 with an output of about 1,000 megawatts in places where the wind blows with such constancy and force that it would even generate profit. Even partial exploitation of the output of wind turbines would yield a significant amount of power during crucial seasons of the year when there is not enough power from solar sources.
Three other reasons are blocking the development of wind turbines in the Czech Republic more than our landlocked position or advances in this technology.
The first reason is the anxious attempt by the governing economic and political structures to maintain the status quo in power production and the whole economy; the second reason is the democratic deficit in the development of wind power and the baronial approach of developers toward the legitimate interests of local communities, towns and villages; and the third reason is the resistance of the corporations for whom renewables would yield exponentially lower profits compared to power produced by burning fossil fuels.
The status quo über alles
This falling behind on wind power copies the overall trend in the falling behind of the Czech Republic as a whole — after our accession to the European Union, it is as if no more fundamental reforms are possible. Power production is one of the most glaring examples.
Czech, or rather, Czechoslovak modern power production was born in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the communist regime built a centralized system for power production in big coal-powered, hydroelectric and nuclear power plants.
One symbol of that era is the story of the destruction and relocation of the City of Most so that mining excavation could start there. Power from the fissioning of Soviet uranium, from the water captured in the Vltava Cascade or from the coal in the Most Basin all provided an unprecedented amount of power which, thanks to the almost complete electrification of Czechoslovakia, flowed to both the big cities and the most remote villages in the Czech lands and Slovakia.
That power production model persists to this day. After the privatization of heat production, the entire power production complex of mines and plants became a good, relatively stable business. The ČEZ company was considered a sure investment with solid yields for decades, and both big investment groups and small-scale savers invested their resources in it en masse.
Oligarchs such as Pavel Tykač or Daniel Křetínský established their global empires and powerful influence on owning mines and power plants in particular in the Czech Republic, although now their ambitions extend far beyond its borders.
Geopolitics has no small impact on the frozen position of Czech power production. One of the leading interests of the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putina has been to keep the states of Central and Eastern Europe dependent on importing fuel from Russia. Cheap Russian natural gas or oil has long softened up manz Czech industrialists to believe there is no need to expend any effort on transforming power production.
Cheap power from fossil fuel, therefore, became the centerpiece of the Czech economic model. Thanks to cheap power and the maintenance of incomparably lower salaries compared to our West European neighbors we have become a target for a lot of capital investment that yields little added value.
The days of our being a cheap assembly line operating on fossil fuel power are over, though. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 dealt a fatal blow to the old economic power model, sparking an energy crisis on a European and global scale.
The intensifying climate crisis also has a big influence on the end of the fossil fuel economy, bringing millions of young people into the streets of European cities around 2019 and subsequently inspiring the adoption of crucial climate policies by the European Union. ¨
However, the old structures in the Czech Republic, from ČEZ to Pavel Tykač to Daniel Křetínský, continue to strive to maintain the status quo, even though the conditions which represented the basis of their power for so long have changed.
Two examples of this should suffice: Instead of rapid state investment into wind turbines which could be built within a matter of weeks, the Government is spending an excessive amount of energy and time on a tender to expand the Dukovany nuclear power plant, essentially just prolonging the agony of the communist model of centralized power production based on large-scale resources.
Another example is the lobbying efforts of coal baoron Pavel Tykač to create a state mechanism of support for coal in order to continue to run his mines and power plants.
This is facilitated by the fact, among other matters, that there does not yet exist enough of a social force to demand change in the direction of clean, more democratic and more fair energy production. Another essential point is based on this — the unwillingness of locals and municipalities to build wind power.
The building of a new power production regime must be controlled and directed by the public sector. That would mean it would not be about the endless pursuit of profit, but that a basic transformation toward cheap, clean, modern energy production would succeed.
There will be no wind turbines without democracy in the economy
According to statements made by the Czech Industry and Trade Ministry for the daily newspaper Deník Referendum, one of the main reasons the building of wind power is lagging are the prejudices held against wind turbines. In addition to resistance by local residents, the permit process is frequently mentioned as being complex, demanding, and long.
As energy analyst Oldřich Sklenář of the Association for International Affairs says, the process takes seven to nine years from the inception of the intention to build a wind power plant to its realization, while the construction of the concrete bases and pillars and the installation of the engine rooms and propellers takes just a few weeks.
The permitting process and the antagonism of local authorities and the public to wind power are closely related. On the one hand, the developers of wind power come up against the demanding paperwork and the claims of those participating in the permitting process, while on the other hand they frequently do not have the support of locals even in places where wind turbines are being planned.
Czech ministries have decided to address this situation through so-called acceleration zones. In such places, permitting processes will be significantly simplified from the standpoint of assessing local consent or the impact of a plan on the character of the landscape, on connection to the power grid, or on the environment.
According to energy analyst Sklenář, “what must be taken into consideration is the force of the wind, the distance of the acceleration zones from residences, bird migration corridors, nature preserves, military zones, or whether the turbines will disrupt airport radar.”
This contest between opposing interests will involve demanding technocratic arguments. It is possible that the acceleration zones may come about, but they will be reduced to the bare minimum and bound by so many exceptions that they will not be able to offer the acceleration of such construction that is so necessary.
That means the paradoxical situation could arise in which there will be areas with faster permitting processes, but very few of them, so they will not necessarily result in a significant shift in the development of wind power. If the permitting processes are to be accelerated, then that has to happen not just in accelerated zones, but across the territory of the whole republic.
Poland is an example of how great the danger of planning process failure can be. The first installations of wind turbines in Poland were realized by power companies before 2010, and their number rose sharply until 2016, when several years of stagnation started.
According to energy expert Klaudie Janikova of the Polish think tank Reform Institute, the blame lies with Rule 10H. “That regulation required new wind turbines be located at a distance from any other building that is the equivalent of 10 times their full height (including their propellers). The consequence was that new projects for wind power could not be realized on most of Polish territory,” Janikova explains for Deník Referendum. However, in 2019 that rule expired, and now the Poles are completing such power plants with approximately 1,000 megawatts of newly installed output.
This means the Czech ministries’ limitations on the planned acceleration zones will contribute to the development of wind power only if such development will not become tied up in unnecessarily strict rules.
In addition to the role of territorial planning, municipalities will play a fundamental role. Miluše Trefancová, a press spokesperson for the Industry and Trade Ministry, told Deník Referendum that “for municipalities or local communities the acceleration zones and wind power are opportunities to participate in the concept of community energy production and to directly take advantage of electricity produced near their homes.”
It is exactly this community dimension of wind power that apparently plays an important role in persuading municipalities to agree to siting wind turbines in the vicinity. It is absolutely justified for municipalities to want to profit from such a visible construction as a wind turbine standing on their territory.
At the same time, public opinion surveys show that Czech society has no problem in principle with wind power. According to a study by Institute 2050, its development is supported by as much as 76 % of the population. Analysts customarily explain antagonism toward building a specific wind power plant through the notorious “Not In My Backyard” principle. Reality is more complex than that.
The problem does not lie in wind turbines per se, but in the way their construction happens. Only a project that directly involves citizens at the construction site and offers them advantages associate with the production of cheap, clean energy near their homes has a chance of success. It cannot be anticipated that a developer who does not announce his plans in time, does not negotiate transparently and does not offer enough advantages to locals and municipalities will will win their consent to the construction of wind turbines.
A frequently-mentioned problem with permitting processes also exists in Austria. According to Wien Energie, the power company of the City of Vienna, the permitting process for wind power in Austria takes about nine years and the construction itself takes around 12 months, or comparatively as long as it does in the Czech Republic. Why, then, are there exponentially more wind turbines in our neighbors to the southwest than there are in our country?
A concurrence of many factors plays a role, whether they be support mechanisms from the Government or the diversity of legal entities building wind power — ranging from companies owned by municipalities to cooperatives and energy communities to big private investors. However, what has been decisive is the fact that the public sector entered into the building of the infrastructure for renewables.
The development of wind power can certainly be sped up through simpler permitting procedures, but what is crucial is that these not just be technocratic interventions into the apparatus of the bureaucracy, and they also must not become a support for the widest possible range of power production entities which just want to make money on the boom in renewables.
It is not bureaucracy or local resistance but the economic and ownership models which are frequently a source of problems for the building of new wind power projects. Municipalities and the public already have their own negative experiences with such a model in the form of big solar parks in particular.
It is essential, therefore, that we find a new model based on unambiguous communications with local people and above all on the community dimension of building wind power.
Private investments are uncertain
According to economic geographer Brett Christophers, solar and wind are among the cheapest energy sources, but low costs are not the main thing in a system based on the endless accumulation of capital in a market environment — what is absolutely determinative is the profitability of wind power projects. Private investors have to have enough guarantees of a return on their investiments and that they will manage to pay their loans back to the investment banks.
As Christophers says in his book The Price is Wrong, the developers of wind power parks most frequently invest 30 % of their own capital and have to borrow the remaining 70 %. They critically depend on long-term contracts with consumers, guaranteed purchase prices and price support mechanisms from the state.
Such support is absolutely appropriate for a newly-growing branch of industry. If the Czechoslovak communists in the 1960s and 1970s stretched the possibilities of the Czechoslovak budget by building new coal-fired power plants, opening coal minds or constructing nuclear reactors, today it is necessary to support renewables, which do not have “jump” on their conventional competitors.
However, this raises an important question. Instead of instituting complex, costly support mechanisms for private companies, couldn’t the state take on this risk directly? The state does not have to run things according to the market imperatives of generating profit and paying out dividends to its creditors, instead, it can concentrate on implementing wind power to reduce the extent of climate change.
The Polish route to wind energy is proving this. “The biggest number of wind power facilities is owned by the PGE company, and 60 % of its stock is owned by the state treasury,” energy expert Janikova told Deník Referendum.
According to Government strategies, Poland is planning to achieve a capacity of six gigawatts of output from wind turbines in the sea in 2030 and 18 gigawatts by 2040.
“It is anticipated that the biggest number of these projects will be realized by state-owned companies like Orlen and PGE,” explains Janikova. The installations on dry land and in the sea will number in the upper hundreds. The Polish state is therefore taking the main burden of responsibility for the energy transformation upon itself.
For a big, democratic, green state
What is the avenue to actually achieving the massive development of wind power that is so necessary? An important role is played by technocratic interventions into territorial planning, such as acceleration zones. The community dimension of wind power makes it possible for residents to enjoy advantages from wind power plants being sited on the territory of their municipalities.
At the same time, however, it is necessary to realize how fundamental of a change this will be for the Czech energy market and all of society. Just a few wind power plants will not save Czech energy production. We will need installations in the upper hundred and a transformation of the entire energy model, from beefing up transmissions networks to building storage capacities to cover daily and seasonal fluctuations, greater connection internationally, saving energy, and the transformation of our energy consumption patterns.
A change will also be necessary to how we consume energy. At least in part we will have to adjust both our business and household energy consumption to natural conditions. Instead of turning appliances on overnight, we will need to turn them on when there will be enough cheap, clean energy in the network.
The building of a new energy regime will mean a change that doesn’t have to be spontaneous and doesn’t have to be “just for some”. This change has to be controlled and directed by the public sector — not just the state and its institutions, but also Regional Authorities, towns and villages, cooperatives, and energy companies. In short, everybody who is not first and foremost concerned with making a profit, but with the success of a fundamental transformation in the direction of cheap, clean, modern power production.
Everything is possible technologically. The changes are already underway for our neighbors. The lagging behind of Czech power production is currently determined by economic and political reasons above all. Until we change this, we cannot expect to produce clean energy in the Czech Republic.
