Denmark: Huge electricity bills for wind turbines

Danes pay billions a year in taxes for wind turbines, and the charge will explode in the coming years

Wind turbines are popular among politicians at Christiansborg, all the while citizens must foot the bill while living by noisy giant wind turbines spoils their ability to get a night's sleep.

The powerful Danish wind industry in the last six years received over 80 billion, with the bulk of the money going to project managers and land owners. At the same time, Danish electricity consumers paid $4.6 billion in so-called PSO charges last year for wind power. That figure has skyrocketed by 270 percent over the past five years. In 2008 the cost was paid 1.8 billion in support for wind power. The figures from Energinet.dk under the Climate and Energy Ministry.

And the bill will increase explosively. Professor of Economics at Copenhagen Business School Henrik Lando submitted to this newspaper, Ekstra Bladet, calculations showing that over 600 new offshore wind turbines, as proposed to be built by 2020, will cost the Danish electricity consumers approximately $10 billion in additional electricity charges over the life of the turbine.

- It's money that is redistributed from ordinary people who pay for wealthy landowners and project developers behind the turbines, while the neighbors of the turbines run the risk that their homes are unsellable. It is rare for local residents in the area to benefit from wind turbines. Eighty percent of the money goes to project managers and land owners, and we pay all the extra for wind power over our electric bill, he said.

But while politicians and the wind energy industry cheers, both consumers and especially the people living near large wind turbines, are paying the price for the noisy turbines both in dollars and in quality of life. Experience from Holland shows that between 100-200,000 Danes or more are at risk of being bothered by a noisy windmills in the coming years.

Everywhere manifests Danes their dissatisfaction over the giant wind turbines because they feel that the companies behind the projects are overruling municipalities to build wind turbines which are noisy and ugly. Professor of Law, University of Copenhagen Peter Pagh, among other things, engaged in environmental law, believes that wind power companies and politicians are more interested in marketing Denmark for its green energy at the expense of neighbors of wind turbines.

- It has become an ideology that litters the country with wind turbines, and it is not for public benefit. The ideology is too strong and it results in some incorrect assessments of where to put wind turbines up, he says.

Editor's note: This piece was translated with the assistance of Google Translate.