Last Friday I held a speed workshop “Solving The Swiss Wind Energy Problem“ at the Impact Hub OpenHubDay. After introducing the problem and discussing some of the solutions already tried, we went quickly to a brainstorming session and developed some interesting new ideas. Read on to find out more.
The problem
Wind energy is an essential part of the energy mix of the future worldwide, but in Switzerland (2018), only 0.3% of the electricity demand was covered by wind energy in 2018 (only 38 wind turbines compared to 30,000 in Germany). However, an increase in wind energy up to 8% of the electricity demand was agreed to in the Energy Strategy 2050, corresponding to around 1,000 more wind turbines. Unfortunately, not a single wind turbine could be installed in 2018! This was mainly due to political and acceptance problems, which I summarised in the figure below:
The main causes are:
Fear caused by the opposition (Do wind turbines kill birds and bats? Is infrasound annoying? Are wind turbines noisy? Are they dangerous? Do they spoil the countryside? Do they damage flora and fauna?).
Lack of experience with wind energy (Few capabilites, .lack of understanding, few companies, few courses and students).
Politics (Each canton has separate processes, complex planning processes, small opposition has a large impact).
It is important to note here that the factors on the left such as “infrasound”, “noise”, “birds and bats” are not the main problem themselves, but the (usually unfounded) fear associated with them. Opposition groups love to spread false information regarding the negative effects of wind energy, scaring local residents into blocking projects.
Solutions already tried
Some of the things already tried to solve these problems are shown in the figure below:
These include:
Fear caused by opposition: Visits to wind turbines; Information days; Facts, facts, facts.
Lack of experience: Founding of The Swiss Wind Energy R&D Network to bundle capabilities; Planned Swiss-wide Bachelors’ and Masters’ courses.
Politics: Suisse Eole (association for promotion of wind energy), Guichet Unique (central office for wind energy at Swiss Federal Office of Energy).
New ideas
We quickly agreed that an effective way to improve acceptance is probably to include the local community directly in wind energy projects. This lead to the following ideas:
“Adopt a wind turbine”: allowing the community to get involved financially and emotionally.
Economic incentives (e.g. 10% owned by community, cheaper shares closer to wind farm).
Getting locals involved in the promotion of a project.
Working with local investors / planning companies.
Using small wind turbines to improve acceptance (even though this may be difficult due to increased costs and high number required).
Crowd “butchering”.
Please get in touch for more information or if you are interested in implementing any of these ideas together with The Swiss Wind Energy R&D Network!