By Calum Ross
A county that leads the world in wind energy is planning to halt the
development of new turbine schemes onshore.
Denmark’s Energy and Climate Minister martin Lidegaard told The Courier
that the nation was close to reaching its “limit” for windfarms.
And he described the Scottish Government’s target of having 100% of
electricity from renewable eneergy by 2020 as “very ambitious”.
Mr Lidegaard said his government’s green energy focus over coming years
will be on offshore wind, and it will start taking down many windfarms on
land, replacing them with more efficient but fewer turbines.
Since the 1970s, Denmark has been a pioneer of wind energy, producing about
half the world’s turbines, with the industry accounting for 10% of the
country’s exports.
The Danish government wants to produce 50% of its electricity needs from
wind by 2020, and hopes to remove generous subsidies for onshore wind soon
after that target date.
Asked how the country Denmark managed to overcome the type of community
objections to turbine schemes witnessed in Scotland, he said the government
had forced developers to offer 20% ownership of each turbine at cost price.
“You have a tendency that if people don’t have a share in the windmill,
they just think it’s disgusting,” he said.
“But if they see when the wind is blowing they are actually making money,
the ownership of the windmill and the project is more,” he said, before
admitting he profited himself from a turbine scheme before becoming a minister.
However, he added: “Of course there is a limit to how much wind you can put
on land. We are close to reaching that limit in Denmark.”
Speaking in his office at the Energy Ministry in central Copenhagen, Mr
Lidegaard explained why Denmark had put so much faith in wind.
“We consider the whole, you could call it the extreme green makeover of our
energy system, as something we ought to do, and because we can do it,” he said.
“Secondly, we’re pretty convinced that the whole Europe and Denmark over
the next 20 years are going to renew or replace of our present power
capacity, and it would be a historic mistake if we once again lock
ourselves into coal and gas, which we are dependent on imports.
“We have a historic chance to change that now. “We also think it makes good
economy.” Despite the long-term focus on green energy, Denmark’s renewables
target for 2020 is well below Scotland’s.
“It’s a very ambitious target Scotland has got,” the minister said.
“Of course, you can’t reach that, in the case of Denmark and Scotland,
without putting a lot of effort into energy efficiency and energy savings,
because that is the most cost-effective, efficient way to reduce.”
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