Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
provided the technological foundation for rectifying supply luctuations from
wind power through gas-ired peak-load power plants.
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In fact, some analysts have pointed out that the Rasmussen administra-
tion's wind power subsidies announced in 2002 to replace the abandoned
green certiicate program amounted to precisely the same amount that
would have been provided under later stages of the green certiicate pro-
gram that was proposed by the preceding Social Democrat-Social Liberal
coalition that held power between 1993 and 2001.
91
Furthermore, new
policies that would eventually emerge suggests that the new government
was not as opposed to wind power as critics suggested, rather this period of
policy entrenchment represented a period of learning by doing where the
government was trying to introduce a degree of inancial restraint into a
sector (renewable energy) that it nevertheless supported.
After ive years of stagnant market activity, the government announced
a new national energy strategy on January 19, 2007 that signaled the start
of a new developmental push. Under the proposal, which was agreed to
by all the parliamentary parties except the far-left Red-Green Alliance,
Denmark would aim to expand renewable energy capacity to satisfy at least
20% of total energy consumption by 2011 and 30% of total energy con-
sumption by 2025.
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In the same year, the government began to mobilize new policies to
achieve these goals. It was recognized that many of the nation's wind
power systems were aging and in need of replacement. Consequently,
the Rasmussen administration announced a new wind turbine substitu-
tion scheme. he goal was to replace approximately 900 turbines (450
kW or less) with 150 to 200 turbines in the 2 MW range.
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In 2008, the
Rasmussen administration further announced intentions to encourage a
1300 MW increase in wind power capacity by the end of 2012.
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According
to the plan, 800 MW of this total would come from three new ofshore wind
parks. To facilitate this increase, an additional balancing cost subsidy of
€0.03 per kWh was ofered on top of the 2002 subsidy of €0.013 per kWh
that was tacked on to the spot price.
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Moreover, a compensation pack-
age was announced to inancially reward communities for hosting onshore
wind farms. On top of all this, the government announced that its CO
2
tax
would be increased to a level that would equate with the expected price
of carbon in 2008-2012—estimated at approximately €20 per ton—and a
new nitric oxide tax of approximately €670 per metric ton would be intro-
duced from January 1, 2010.
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hese new policies reinvigorated wind power development. In 2009,
320 MW of new installed wind power capacity was added (238 MW in of-
shore developments) and in 2010, another 320 MW was added (207 MW in
