Giga Berlin approved with strict water usage conditions

According to a media report, the Tesla factory in Grünheide will receive the long-awaited final overall approval from the responsible Brandenburg State Office for the Environment (LfU). However, there will be strict conditions regarding water and possible accidents.

This is reported by the portal Business Insider with reference to several sources from government circles. The approval could possibly be granted in November, after the more than 800 objections from three rounds of public participation against the factory have been processed. This process is expected to last until October, which is why the overall approval could only be granted afterwards, the report asserts. The decision in favour of the factory is said to have been made “several days ago in a small circle”.

Brandenburg’s Minister of Economics Jörg Steinbach had already given the probability of this approval as “95 per cent” in the middle of the month. Brandenburg’s Minister President Dietmar Woidke also said in a recent dpa interview that approval for the factory was “conceivable this year”.

According to information from the portal, Tesla will receive overall approval on the premise that readjustments will be made on the issues of water and possible incidents. “On the latter, it is said to be mainly the toxic pollutants that the regulator is concerned about,” the report says. In late spring, an independent report had already certified that the US electric car manufacturer was not sufficiently prepared for possible accidents.

As recently as mid-September, Brandenburg’s State Environmental Agency granted Tesla two further early approvals in connection with the Gigafactory in Grünheide. The authority has now allowed the construction of the completely modified building shell, including the changes to the storage hall now intended for battery cell production. In addition, Tesla can build several basins for rainwater and fire-fighting water, for example.

businessinsider.de (in German)