Nordic wind power threatened by ugly mills
Reuters News ServiceNorwegian state power company Statoil pulled out of a wind power project in January, saying the economic outlook for the project was "not favourable".
But costs are falling as technology improves and competition hardens among windmill producers.
Swedish research institute Elforsk, owned by the electricity industry, says costs of wind power are likely to fall by up to 25 percent over the next ten years.
Joern Lemming, Danish energy authorities' wind power expert, says the best located windmill parks in Denmark produce power at prices down to around 22 Norwegian oere/kWh.
NEW TURBINE COSTS DOWN
"On average, wind power costs are around 30-40 oere/kWh since many of the older wind turbines are less efficient and wind resources differ, but prices from new turbines are normally at levels around 25 oere/kWh," he said.
Lemming also said Denmark would build all new windmills in gigantic offshore parks as public opinion is starting to turn against windmills in the countryside.
"As wind turbines are bigger, they will be more visible in the landscape," he said. All the Nordic nations face the same dilemma - old windmills such as those in the Netherlands are tourist attractions but modern metal mills are viewed as ugly.
"This is likely to be the main obstacle for wind power - to make people accept living close to the rotating blades from wind turbines," said Professor Atle Midtun, an energy expert at the Norwegian school of economics (BI).
Knut Herstad, chief of Norwegian power producers lobby ENFO, also expressed doubts over whether wind power would become a major energy source in Norway, partly due to public opposition.
"Even though costs are being reduced, they still will be too high and the industry also has to achieve public acceptance," he said.
Denmark produces around three terawatt hours (TWh) a year from windmills and plans to build offshore parks to raise output to cover half of demand by 2030.
NUCLEAR POWER SUBSTITUTE
Sweden wants to replace nuclear power with green energy and wants to produce eight TWh of windpower by 2008.
Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson "has expressed an ambition of producing an amount of windpower equivalent to the two nuclear reactors at Barseback," said Peter Akinder, political advisor for industry minister Bjoern Rosengren.
Swedish nuclear power station Barseback is set to close its second reactor by 2001 as part of a plan to phase out Swedish nuclear power production. The first of Barseback's two 600-megawatt reactors was shut in November last year.
Norway has a goal of three TWh by 2010, up from almost none at present, while Finland aims to develop 1.1 TWh within 10 years.