The amount of electricity that comes from wind power may need to quadruple compared to today, if we are to achieve the climate goals. An extensive expansion will need to be done in all parts of the country, Klotet reports in this week’s section.
Maria Stenkvist works with wind power at the Swedish Energy Agency.
– We need to create conditions for 100 terawatt hours of wind power by 2040.
Four times as much wind power that today may be needed by the year 2040, if Sweden is to meet the goal of having 100 percent renewable electricity then. This is according to a strategy for wind power that the Swedish Energy Agency and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency recently presented.
How much wind power in that case need to be built in different parts of the country, is also pointed out in the strategy. Among other things, the Stockholm area, which today has almost no wind power at all, must expand properly, to two terawatt hours per year.
– I think it will be quite difficult to get it in electricity area 3, for example Stockholm, where wind power has not been expanded so far.
Electricity needs to be produced where it will be used, and therefore it is not enough to expand in the northernmost, less densely populated parts of the country.
– Dalarna and Värmland have also received quite high figures, Dalarna will have 7.5 terawatt hours and Värmland 5, so it is a challenge.
It is already common today with conflicts when wind power is to be built, and many projects are stopped. These can be reindeer herding or birds that are threatened, neighbors whose views are ruined, and wind power often clashes with military interests.
– The Armed Forces has great claims in areas where they see that wind power causes problems for their operations.
Now the industry hopes on changing rules soon, which can make it easier to get wind turbines approved. And Tomas Hallberg at Svensk Vindenergi thinks that it is good that the authorities have now presented a strategy for how wind power is to be expanded.
– We think it will make it easier. More people will realize more about how much needs to be done.
Source: ICELAND NEWS