Denmark makes bold statement on renewables

Denmark has made a bold move to produce one third of its energy from renewables by the end of the decade. This would involve a huge upscaling of its wind power capacity and also increases in solar and biomass power. Going further than other European countries, it has a commitment to be run completely on renewables by 2050.

The move has been welcomed by all the major political parties in the country, and Lykke Friis, who is a pro-business right wing member of the opposition Liberal Party, perhaps the most likely to disagree with the policy, is in fact a wholehearted supporter. Her view is the norm in Danish politics, and she sees the move as a good financial investment, rather than just an answer to issues like global warming.

"No matter what we do, we will have an increase in the price of energy, simply because people in India and China want to have a car, want to travel," she says. "That is why we came out with a clear ambition to be independent of fossil fuels: so we are not vulnerable to great fluctuations in energy price."

There are many potential challenges in implementing such a grand scheme however. Energy storage is a difficult question, and the cost of transporting energy from wind farms to cities may well be considerable. The investment required is large, but it has the potential to free the country from the coal and oil prison that many countries are trapped in, and they will do this much more quickly than any other country.

There are some opponents to the plans; it is true that the costs involved in this transformation will be large, and the per unit cost currently for renewables is greater than traditional fuel sources, but this is not necessarily going to be the case in the future. As plummeting solar subsidies across Europe tells us, the prospect in the near future is for renewables to become much cheaper.