Wind power in Sweden

Lillgrund Wind Farm in Sweden

Sweden consumes about 150 terawatt hours of electricity per year, of which about 6 TW·h is generated from domestic wind power resources. Several times as much is imported from Denmark, which generates a considerable amount of surplus wind power. Two large projects are under development, which could dramatically increase wind power in Sweden.

Wind power in Sweden
Year	MW	GWh
2000	241	447
2001	295	482
2002	345	609
2003	404	679
2004	452	865
2005	493	936
2006	583	988
2007	832	1,430
2008	1,085	1,974
2009	1,448	2,489
2010	2,019	ca. 3,500

Swedish package and paper products company Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget and Norwegian power company Statkraft will invest 16 billion kronor (€1.73 billion; US$2.4 billion) in a project which will consist of around 400 wind turbines in seven wind farms in Jämtland and Västernorrland counties. Statkraft will provide financing and SCA the land.

"... the wind power venture would involve production of 2,800 gigawatt hours, or GWh, of wind power electricity a year, accounting for between two to three percent of Sweden's electricity production."

The Markbygden Wind Farm will be a series of wind farms in Norrbotten County. The project will be built by 2020, and will have a capacity of up to 4 GW. If built out, the 55 billion kronor (€5.1 billion, US$6.9 billion) project will be the largest wind farm in Europe. The wind farm will cover some 450 square kilometres, comprising about 1,100 wind turbines, and is expected to produce up to 12 TW·h of electricity per year (i.e. an average power of up to 1.4 GW).

Anti wind power movement

The Association for Swedish Landscape Protection is growing steadily, with 20 000 registered members, as is opposition to wind power. Their chairman says:

It is beginning to get through, I think, that with the existing nuclear and hydro power available in Sweden, the role for intermittent wind power is marginal and primarily as an exercise in the following of ”fashion”. It has little to contribute to either generation capacity or transmission security. And it is expensive.

— Elisabeth von Brömsen, Public radio SR, March 2011

Furthermore, 150-metre high turbines have been compared to "skyscrapers in the woods" in their impact. And according to Eva Vitell, head of Vattenfall's Swedish wind power development on land, wind turbines where the wings give a total height of 150 meters are generally not high enough, and that extra height is needed in order to escape the turbulence (from trees) and gain access to good winds.

See also

• List of wind farms in Sweden
• List of offshore wind farms in Sweden

External links

• SWECO To Manage Wind Power Venture in Northern Sweden