| Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005. |
Norwegian reindeer herders force wind turbine review
Credit: Jesper Starn and Lars Erik Taraldsen - October 12 2021 - independent.ie ~~
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Statkraft AS may have to tear down as many as 151 turbines at one of Europe’s biggest windfarms following a Norwegian supreme court ruling in favour of Sami reindeer owners.
The ruling covers two windfarms built on traditional reindeer pastures in central Norway that the Sami people claim violates their indigenous rights. They have now won a key decision in the supreme court that leaves the operator Statkraft AS in limbo about the future of one of its biggest onshore windpower facilities.
The ruling means the farms, which are barely over two years old, should never have been given a licence back in 2010, according to Eirik Bronner, lawyer for one of the plaintiffs. Without a licence all production should stop and the turbines dismantled, he said.
“That is how we see it,” Mr Bronner said. “What the Supreme Court has said is that the licencing decision is invalid. This means that there are two illegal wind parks.”
For now, the 151 turbines in Storheia and Roan, part of the Fosen wind project, will continue to spin as the verdict is passed on to the petroleum and energy ministry for an assessment. The ministry will now consider the ruling before determining a course of action, a spokesman said without saying when such a decision could be expected.
“It is a completely new situation for us,” Torbjorn Steen, a spokesman for Statkraft and the Fosen wind project said. “There are no immediate consequences of this until we get the ministry’s assessment.”
Wind power has struck a nerve in Norway, with a backlash against the machines that stand as tall as skyscrapers seeing environmentalists line up with oil industry supporters against the energy source. With the uncertainty created by yesterday’s ruling, its future in Norway may be limited.
The Fosen project was Statkraft’s first attempt at a large scale onshore windfarm in Norway, costing as much €1.1bn when the deal with Credit Suisse was announced in 2016.
With a combined capacity of 1,000 megawatts, it remains one of the biggest onshore windfarms in Norway.
This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.
The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.
| Wind Watch relies entirely on User Funding |
 (via Stripe) |
 (via Paypal) |
Share:
[ Short URL: https://wind-watch.org/news/?p=102078 ]
