The tricky politics of Swedens offshore wind – POLITICO.eu

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STOCKHOLM Offshore wind is supposed to be the uncontroversial renewable green, clean and largely out of sight but some Swedish localities are so opposed to wind towers poking over the waves that they'd rather build new nuclear reactors.

Do we want a beautiful coast where people want to live, with a fantastic tourist industry or do we want to destroy it with steel structures, with helicopters flying overhead to de-ice turbines? said Lars Beckman of the center-right opposition Moderate Party during a debate last week on building two new wind parks off the town of Gvle, a couple of hours drive north of Stockholm.

During the debate, Beckman raised his partys view that nuclear power, not wind, should be expanded. Nuclear generates about a third of Sweden's power.

In many countries like Germany and Poland offshore wind is seen as a way to expand renewable energy without getting the blowback that turbines encounter on land. But that's not always the case in Sweden, where offshore wind is quickly becoming a polarizing issue ahead of next year's parliamentary election.

And the fight is likely to get much worse.

According to a recent report by Swedeenergy, a business lobby group, Sweden may have to more than double its electricity production by 2045to meet rising demand from industries like mining and steel as they abandon fossil fuels.

The current government of the Social Democrats and Greens is putting much of its faith in wind. Swedens onshore wind power production has been ramped up sharply over recent years and rose 40 percent between 2019 and 2020 alone.

We have seen a rapid expansion of renewable electricity in Sweden, but to meet the acute challenge of climate change, we need to speed up this expansion, Environment Minister Per Bolund toldreporters at a briefing to announce a plan to make offshore projects cheaper for developers last month.Wind power at sea has enormous potential."

Existing applications for offshore wind projects in southern Sweden alone equate to 350 terawatt hours in new production, or roughly two-and-a-half times Swedens total 2020 electricity usage of 134 TWh, Energy Minister Anders Ygemantold the same press briefing.

But the best and cheapest areas for new wind projects are often quite close to shore, sparking growing resistance.

In Smgen, a fishing village on the west coast, local center-right Mayor Mats Abrahamsson is against offshore wind near his municipality, saying structures as tall as the Eiffel Tower in the sea would be alien to his community.

This is just not what you associate with this place, he told Swedens SVT. Sea, sun, fish and shrimps, that is what we associate with this place.

Applications for new projects have to be approved by local councils and environmental courts, sparking political and legal battles across Sweden. In many cases, the same objections that have been traditionally used against onshore wind power that the turbines are ugly and noisy and damage natural habitats and prospects for tourism are now being used against offshore projects.

That's what happened in Gvle, where opposition politicians like Beckman succeeded in postponing the decision of two parks off Gvle Utposten 2 and Storgrundet for a month by requesting more information on financing.

After the meeting, Social Democrat Councillor Jrgen Edsvik, who backs the projects along with most other local lawmakers, said the schemes could have a major impact on the economy of Gvle where companies including Microsoft are requesting large amounts of clean power and also boost efforts to fight climate change.

Any planned new exploitation has an impact, and it is regrettable that some individuals can sometimes find that their immediate environment is changed, said Edsvik. At the same time, we municipal lawmakers have to look at the interests of the whole society, for everyone who lives in Gvle.

The fight in Gvle is part of a wider battle over the role that nuclear and wind should play in decarbonizing Sweden's electricity grid.

The Moderate Party has led attacks on the government over the shutdown of a nuclear reactor at the Ringhals plant in southern Sweden earlier this year, and in a widely watched television debate in late October, representatives of the main parliamentary parties clashed fiercely over the issue.

That has academics worried it will distract the country from the bigger effort to combat climate change.

We have a huge demand for electricity to meet, said Lisa Gransson, a researcher of energy systems at Gothenburgs Chalmers University of Technology. There is too much of a focus on differences of opinion instead of what we agree on.

For the rest of Europe, the tensions in Sweden over energy policy are a sign of things to come, with lawmakers forced to weigh rising voter concern over climate change against local disquiet over renewable infrastructure. There are similar battles in Germany over a proposed power link connecting North Sea offshore wind and southern industrial regions, with locals worrying about the project despoiling pretty Alpine views.

In Sweden, the center of gravity of this fight has now moved to the coast.

In Trelleborg, in the far south, center-right Mayor Mikael Rubin said wind turbines on the horizon would damage his municipality's tourist industry.

Swedish law allows towns to veto plans for local wind parks, and Trelleborg council has exercised that right, despite recent moves by the government to create financial incentives for communities that allow wind farms.

Money isnt everything, Rubin said.

In Gvle, the debate over Utposten 2 and Storgrundet will begin again in late November.

Social Democrat Councillor Edsvik believes that the project will be passed, and come election day next fall, voters will back his partys stance because it will ensure local industries get the clean electricity they need while contributing to national efforts to cut carbon emissions.

It is important that Gvle plays its part, he said.

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The tricky politics of Swedens offshore wind - POLITICO.eu