Alongside the elections, 20 referendums are due to take place in Czechia this weekend. Residents will decide whether they want wind turbines near their communities. The issue is pitting neighbours against each other, and the conflict is often being stoked by people who previously opposed vaccination against coronavirus. The village of Kačice shows how what was originally a fringe issue has become an election battleground.
It is a sunny Tuesday in September in the village of Kačice, in the Kladno area, 30 kilometres from Prague. Cows low in a sprawling cowshed, trains pass by, and the country lanes are empty apart from a few cyclists and a mother with a pushchair. A short distance above the cowshed, and apparently within sight of the planned wind farm site, two older men sit on the porch of a newly renovated country house with a covered swimming pool. They are happy to talk to a journalist from Prague, but say I must not turn on my recorder.
One of them immediately offers to be on first-name terms and says he used to oppose wind turbines but now supports them, mainly because of the money they will bring to the village. The other keeps his distance and does not want to talk much about the issue. Later, in passing, he admits he is running in the local elections for an association that opposes wind turbines.
The wind power supporter gently teases his friend about it, but it is good-natured, almost affectionate banter. The mood between them is cheerful and relaxed. It is in stark contrast to what is happening just a few hundred metres away at Kačice municipal offices. The atmosphere there is thick with tension.
What kind of soldier are you?
NOHO Energy, which wants to build five 180-metre wind turbines in Kačice, has scheduled a meeting with residents for today. The municipal offices have set up a room with several exhibits where locals can, for example, see in virtual reality what the turbines will look like from different parts of the village. But apart from a scale model of a turbine spinning in the room, it remains mostly empty for most of the day.
Everyone is crowded into the smaller room next door, where chairs have been set out. Jaroslav Čížek, founder of the Realistic Energy and Ecology association, and Pynelopi Cimprichová, a pharmacist, anti-vaxxer and politician, have travelled from Prague. Sitting opposite them is NOHO chief executive Tomáš Vrbický with his colleagues. Three long-time local residents are seated on a sofa. A Czech Television crew with two cameras is filming the scene for a documentary in its Zone of Interest series, which looks at whether and how people in Czech society can reach agreement.
The discussion is heated, with people talking over one another, but Čížek and Cimprichová do most of the talking. Both speak about the alleged health effects of wind turbines, particularly infrasound and “forever chemicals”.
“I bet neither of you ever did military service, gentlemen,” Čížek thunders. “If you had served in the military like I did 50 years ago, you’d have learned what you have to do when you come to a bridge. Break step, because those are the pulses, and if you match the bridge’s frequency, it comes down with you,” Čížek says. The soldiers marching across a bridge are apparently meant to illustrate the harmful health effects of infrasound from wind turbines.
Ekonews has covered the subject of infrasound from wind turbines in detail here and here. Deník.cz recently also explained the issue of forever chemicals here. The claim that huge amounts of microplastics are released from wind turbine blades is disinformation that only recently began circulating on the Czech internet.
But facts do not matter at all at the municipal offices that day. Most of the people there, whether local residents or visitors from elsewhere, have not come to learn about the project, as the developer had hoped. They have come to get angry.
At first, people didn’t care
Wind turbines have been discussed in Kačice for about two and a half years. At the end of May and beginning of June 2024, developer NOHO Energy held three public meetings where company representatives and invited experts explained all aspects of the project and answered questions about noise and protecting the landscape. “Every resident of Kačice received a notice in their mailbox saying we were planning public meetings at the Sokolovna, that anyone could come, find out more, ask questions and get informed,” says village mayor Libor Němeček.
But two years ago, interest among residents was lukewarm. Twenty-eight people attended the first meeting, 75 the second and 108 the last. Kačice has a population of 1,236. “It seemed that people weren’t really interested. I offered to talk to anyone who wanted to discuss it in person. Since we started discussing it, practically nobody has come to see me,” the mayor adds.
The meetings were followed by a survey in which 55.4 per cent of voters supported construction: 207 voted in favour and 168 against. Six months later, developer NOHO Energy signed a planning agreement with the municipal council and continued with its plans.
According to NOHO Energy co-founder and chief technology officer Ondřej Ludvík, a major shift in the village’s mood came after the new government took office. It had made opposition to wind turbines one of its main issues. “The disinformation we encounter is nothing new. It has always been around; it just wasn’t so loud. I feel that with the more radical elements of the new government, people have started to feel they have support for saying disinformation out loud, that it can simply become mainstream,” Ludvík says.
“Quite a few people who had previously focused on how bad vaccination was and how bad the war in Ukraine was took up wind turbines as their new issue and started promoting it on social media. Then the local elections began to approach, and some people saw it as an opportunity to have an issue to run on and win voters’ support. When all that came together, suddenly there was a problem at most of the sites where we are preparing wind farm projects,” Ludvík says.
The bogeyman called infrasound
The fact that opponents of coronavirus vaccination have taken up the cause of “dangerous” wind turbines is also evident from another person sitting alongside Čížek and Cimprichová at the municipal offices. “I’ve basically been an activist since Covid, and I’m also a patriot,” says a man wearing a cap with the Czech flag who introduces himself as Roman Musil. “Reports can be falsified, manipulated. I walk my dog, talk to the deer, and see the wildlife dwindling,” Musil says. He is referring specifically to Pchery, 12 kilometres away, where two wind turbines are already standing.
“For the second year now, I haven’t even been able to take a shot there; there’s no wildlife under those turbines in the valley of the Knovíz stream. First the birds disappeared, then the insects, hares, pheasants and deer. We don’t have a study; it’s just my personal observation, based on a decade of my life spent close to nature. And I’m convinced infrasound is to blame,” Musil says.
Asked whether the wildlife should therefore have disappeared from the area around Kačice long ago as well, since infrasound travels long distances and can reach here from Pchery, he has no clear answer. “If my judgement is right, it will disappear from here too. It’s only a matter of time, and there won’t be any wildlife here,” Musil says. The wind turbines in Pchery have been operating for 18 years.
Like Čížek and Cimprichová, Musil is not exactly a local resident either. He says he lives partly in Pchery and partly in Kačice, at a friend’s place, while his permanent address is in Beroun. He will therefore be unable to vote in the local referendum, which will take place alongside the local elections this Friday.
According to the mayor, the mood in the village shifted when the company submitted an application to the Regional Authority this spring for an environmental impact assessment. “That was when various Facebook groups of people who viewed the project negatively appeared. Then a group of residents formed in the village and started going door to door, collecting signatures so they could submit a proposal to hold a referendum,” Němeček says.
“A lot of people submitted objections to the Regional Authority, calling for a full EIA procedure, which is a detailed assessment of the project’s environmental impact. I agree with that. I don’t want anything here that would harm people or animals. I don’t support wind turbines because I want to harm the village. I see them as a benefit to the community, because according to most experts, there’s basically no other way to ensure our energy future and reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible,” Němeček says.
The dispute over wind turbines has meanwhile spilled over into people’s everyday lives. “We get anonymous letters through our mail slots slandering the mayor, saying the village is selling off land and so on. It’s a strange atmosphere,” says a young woman who introduces herself as Kristýna. She came to the municipal offices for information. “We support the turbines, even though we’ll be able to see them. There’s a solar farm right in front of our windows, and back then nobody asked whether we liked it or not. The wind turbines seem to us like an ideal source of energy, so we’re not against them at all,” she adds.
Kačice’s storks
Němeček has been mayor for 12 years. In the last election, in 2022, he was the only mayoral candidate, and his party was the only one seeking voters’ support. This year, two more electoral coalitions are running. Both have opposition to wind turbines as one of their main issues.
“It’s not just about the turbines; we want broader change,” says Miloš Vácha, a candidate for the Kačice Independent Citizens’ Association – Free Citizens, who works as a technical employee for the Czech Armed Forces. “We see facilities improving in other villages, but that isn’t happening here. We want to know when the Kačice bypass will finally be planned; we need to get rid of the crazy truck traffic that pours through the entire village. Our agricultural cooperatives are another major problem,” Vácha says. He believes wind turbines would only add to the burden.
Ekonews spoke to several people in the village who, by contrast, said life in Kačice was good. Just before the entrance to the village is the Chobot complex, with a pond, a large playground and a pump track where children ride bicycles and balance bikes. The two mothers I approach are not from here; they deliberately come to the area so their children can enjoy the facilities.
“A lot of good things have been done here. Nobody can say that the people sitting in our town hall today are doing a bad job,” says a woman walking her dog around the pond.
“There was a lot of talk about the wind turbines here, but not many people were interested. Then there was a vote, and those who wanted the turbines won democratically. Everyone had the opportunity to express their views. And now suddenly there’s a huge fuss, as if this had never been discussed here, as if nobody had ever talked about it,” says the dog owner, who wished to remain anonymous. She supports the wind turbines, but later admits she is worried about the local storks, which have returned regularly to their nest on the chimney of Kačice’s Koul mill since 2004. The species is critically endangered.
Cyclist Jan, who is waiting for a train at Kačice station, shares the same concern. “I’m a big nature lover, so I’m against wind turbines. They would drive away birds of prey. Maybe the storks we have here would disappear too,” he says.
The company says it is addressing concerns about birds. “We know the stork is a major issue in Kačice. We contacted an ornithologist and asked about setting mitigation measures. A biological consultancy prepared a two-year biological assessment that focused, among other things, on the stork, where it moves and where it feeds,” says NOHO Energy project manager Charles Kulček.
“When a field is ploughed on the hill, the stork may fly over to feed. For that reason, we will stop the wind turbines during ploughing so the blades don’t injure it. The turbines will be switched off. They will also be switched off when the sun is low, so they don’t cast flickering shadows into people’s windows. Turbine control systems are advanced these days, and we can configure them precisely to meet environmental needs,” Kulček explains.
What if voters say no in the referendum?
“We will push to STOP the wind turbines if that is what you decide in the referendum. A lawyer will assess the amount of any potential costs,” says an election leaflet from the Independent Candidates’ Association – Free Citizens.
But if the referendum goes against the wind project, the village will find itself trapped. On the one hand, it will be bound by the referendum, the will of its residents; on the other, it is bound by the planning agreement. “If, after signing this agreement, the municipality changes its mind about cooperating with the developer and abandons the project, the parties consider the developer’s investment in the project to have been wasted, and the municipality will be liable for any losses incurred by the developer as a direct result. The municipality undertakes to reimburse the developer for costs demonstrably incurred in preparing and implementing the abandoned project from the effective date of this agreement until the cooperation ends,” the agreement states. According to information obtained by Ekonews, NOHO has already invested tens of millions of crowns in the Kačice project.
“We’re optimistic that the referendum will go well and that we’re succeeding in explaining the benefits of wind power to people, especially at a time of energy crisis and rising energy prices,” says Ludvík of NOHO Energy. “If it doesn’t, that will be a clear message to us that we’re not communicating wind power well enough. We’ll have to work out the next steps with the newly elected council and mayor. However, given the planning agreements in force, the solution is not simple or clear-cut,” Ludvík adds.
Mines beneath the turbines
Vácha believes the village will ultimately not have to pay any penalties. “From what we’ve heard about other places where something similar happened, when the company was about to go to court, it withdrew all its claims,” Vácha says. In his view, the biggest problem is that the entire area where the turbines are planned is undermined by mining.
“The mining authority should give its opinion, and they’d probably have to do some massive anchoring in the ground. The mines here went almost a thousand metres deep, and if you imagine a tower going up there, creating dynamic stress on the ground, that’s not ideal,” Vácha says.
But the Kačice wind project already has an expert report from a mining expert appointed by the court. It does indeed find that the area under assessment is associated with historical deep mining of bituminous coal. It refers to mine workings at depths of around 570 to 615 metres. However, the report does not conclude that wind turbines cannot be built in the area. According to the report, there are no major mine workings close to the structures that could pose an immediate risk to them. The project must nevertheless comply with the rules for construction in undermined areas, with stricter requirements applying because of a tectonic fault.
The report also notes that Diamo, a state-owned company specialising in mitigating the effects of mining, issued approvals for the project without objections to the construction of the individual structures.
As in other villages, the developer has agreed in its contract to contribute to the municipal budget once the turbines begin operating. First, it would make a one-off contribution of six million crowns, followed by a regular annual payment of 3.5 million crowns to the municipality. The company also promises residents cheaper electricity, meaning the benefits of the project would go not only to the municipal budget but also to households. “That doesn’t convince me at all. I object to the sheer size of the turbine; it intrudes on the landscape and the view. Its aviation warning lights will definitely flash at night,” Vácha says.
“People have already voted in favour once, and we hope the referendum will confirm that. I wouldn’t say there’s a large opposition group here in Kačice; it’s more that they’re loud,” Kulček says. “I hope those who oppose the project came today, and those who support it will turn out for the referendum,” he adds. The result of the referendum is likely to be very close. From what Ekonews was able to observe in the village, residents are split exactly down the middle.
Jaroslav Čížek and Pynelopi Cimprichová have already left for Prague. A few more people interested in the five-turbine project continue to trickle into the municipal offices. Several older women are standing outside the building. One of them told me a short while ago that she was helping distribute anonymous leaflets through people’s mail slots. They plan to hand out another batch before the elections.
The sun is slowly setting over Chobot, and the playground is full of children. Meanwhile, the battle over five wind turbines is reaching its climax in Kačice. Local residents will decide their fate.
