Renewable energy policy in Denmark

Renewable energy policy in Denmark has been strongly influenced by the early pioneering work on wind power by Poul la Cour back in the 1890s. As a consequence, wind power has been the main element in Danish renewable energy policy, although public support has also been given to the development of, for example, biogas and solar collectors. The penetration of these technologies is, however, rather modest. In contrast to this, the penetration of wind power in Denmark has been even faster than the targets of the official national energy plans. It is expected that wind power has covered about 19 % of the Danish electricity consumption in 2003. This is a factor of three higher than the coverage in Germany and Spain and an order of magnitude higher than for any other nation. The fast penetration of wind power in Denmark has been due to several factors. The most important factor in the '90s has been the regulated favourable feed-in tariff for electricity from renewables, including wind. After the liberalization of energy markets in Europe in the last part of the '90s, Danish renewable energy policies have been undergoing radical changes. A new energy act from 1999 has outlined a change from the feed-in model to a model based on trading of green certificates. The change was decided because the Danish government expected an EU decision in favour of the certificate trading model. However, such a decision has not come about and the transition to the new model has turned out to be more complex than foreseen. As a consequence, complicated transition rules for renewables have been introduced. This has created considerable uncertainty for Danish investors in wind power and given rise to a decreased growth rate of land-based wind installations during the last few years. The change of Danish government at the end of 2001 has resulted in radical changes in Danish renewable energy policy. Government economic support for the development and demonstration of renewable energy systems has been abolished to a large extent. Instead, development is supposed to rely on the market.