An ill wind blows for Denmark's green energy revolution

Denmark (...) it has become one of the first countries to turn against the turbines.
(...) Denmark's giant state-owned power company, Dong Energy, announced that it would abandon future onshore wind farms in the country. "Every time we were building onshore, the public reacts in a negative way and we had a lot of criticism from neighbours," said a spokesman for the company. "Now we are putting all our efforts into offshore windfarms."
(...) But it is in Denmark, the great windfarm pioneer, where some of the most interesting changes are taking shape. In 1980, the Danish government was Europe's first to bring in large-scale subsidies - on which, just as in Britain, the wind industry depends.
The results have been dramatic. According to the Danish Wind Energy Association, there are more than four thousand onshore turbines – two-thirds more than Britain - in a country a fifth the size. Nowhere else has more turbines per head, and Denmark is also a global centre of wind turbine manufacturing – with Vestas, the world's leading turbine firm, based in the country.
Unfortunately, Danish electricity bills have been almost as dramatically affected as the Danish landscape. Thanks in part to the windfarm subsidies, Danes pay some of Europe's highest energy tariffs – on average, more than twice those in Britain. Under public pressure, Denmark's ruling Left Party is curbing the handouts to the wind industry.


"Since 2005 alone, 5.1 billion kroner [£621 million] has been paid to the wind turbine owners. That cost has been borne by businesses and private consumers," says the party's environment spokesman, Lars Christian Lilleholt. "It seems to have become a political fashion to say that there should be more support for wind. But we have to look at other renewables. We cannot go on with wind power only."
The subsidy cuts are almost certainly the main reason behind Dong's move out of onshore wind. But public anger is real enough, too. Until recently, there was relatively little opposition to the windmills. But now a threshold appears to have been crossed. Earlier this year, a new national anti-wind body, Neighbours of Large Wind Turbines, was created. More than 40 civic groups have become members.
"People are fed up with having their property devalued and sleep ruined by noise from large wind turbines," says the association's president, Boye Jensen Odsherred. "We receive constant calls from civic groups that want to join."
In one typical battle, in the central city of Svendborg, the local council set height and number limits on turbines under heavy pressure from locals. "The violent protests and the uncertainty about low-frequency noise means that right now we will not expose our citizens to large windmills," said the deputy mayor, Lars Erik Hornemann.
There has also been growing scrutiny of the wind industry's macro claims. Though wind may indeed generate an amount of electricity equal to about a fifth of Danes' needs, most of that electricity cannot actually be used in Denmark.

Article in full at The Telegraph