Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Another technological characteristic that beneitted wind power develop-
ment was a culture of collaboration between industry, academia, and govern-
ment.
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Not only did this help centralize R&D and improve research eiciency,
it also enabled learning by interacting, which resulted in a virtuous circle that
provided expedient technological responses to emergent challenges.
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A inal signiicant technological element in support of enhanced wind
power difusion was grid resilience. Electricity grid interconnections to
Germany and the European Continental Grid in Western Denmark and
to the NORDEL synchronous area for Eastern Denmark provided the grid
resiliency necessary for integrating wind power. When the two Danish grids
were interconnected in 2009 by a high-voltage current known as the Great
Belt Link,
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resilience was further enhanced.
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4.5 INFLUENCES ON GOVERNMENT POLICY
As will be demonstrated in the Canadian and Japanese case study chapters
which describe phlegmatic wind power markets, government temerity in
responding to landscape inluences such as those described in the previ-
ous section can engender stakeholder opposition or result in squandered
opportunity. Conversely, governments that respond efectively to landscape
trends smooth the developmental path of wind power. Denmark is a case in
point. his section will briely summarize how social, economic and tech-
nological forces in Denmark directly inluenced government policy. his is
not to say that the inluence was coercive in all cases. Indeed, as this section
will demonstrate, in many instances the government demonstrated acute
awareness of market dynamics and adjusted policy to respond to emergent
stakeholder needs.
4.5.1 Sociocultural
→
Political
As outlined in the historical review of Danish wind power policy, the
national energy plan of 1976 aimed to wean the nation from a reliance on
oil by considering alternative energy forms, including nuclear power, that
the government was bullish about. However, well-organized opposition
from two anti-nuclear NGOs resulted in a government decision in 1985 to
scrap plans to use nuclear power.
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Any latent support for nuclear power
that still existed in policy circles evaporated with the Chernobyl disaster in
1986. he government responded to social disapproval of nuclear power by
refocusing eforts on wind power, a technology that was deftly promoted
