Photo: Sveinulf Vaagene. Here from the development of another wind power plant in Egersund, Rogaland with a similar nature type as in Kvinesheia.
The Norwegian Environmental Protection Association submitted an objection to Statkraft's change application on 1 March 2019. They had applied for increased turbine height and rotor diameter without this being specified in more detail or documented by the developer. In addition, they also applied for an extension of the license deadline. There are several weighty reasons why the original license should never have been granted, and a new extension of the current license must be rejected.
Statkraft Vind Utvikling DA has applied to increase the installed power in the wind power plant from 60 MW to 90 MW, and at the same time also applied for a postponed deadline for commissioning from 31.12.2020 to 31.12.2021.
On 26 April 2012, NVE granted SAE Vind DA a license to build and operate the Kvinesheia wind power plant with associated infrastructure. The decision was appealed. The Ministry of Petroleum and Energy announced the final license for the project on 30 April 2015. NVE has set a number of conditions for the concession, including requirements for the preparation of a detailed plan and an environmental, transport and facilities plan. In the appeals process, the OED set conditions regarding the reduction of the planning area.
The application from Statkraft contains no description of the requested change in either height, rotor diameter or location other than that they describe the whole thing as "new technology where height and rotor diameter are increased". No numbers, scale or specification. No location or new floor plan. No updated or new impact assessment. Only the empty words "new technology where height and rotor diameter are increased“..(!)
Larger turbines often also entail changed requirements for access roads and installation sites where larger parts must be transported into very hilly terrain. From other developments, we see that the destruction will be extensive in the entire terrain where they are to be built and in its entire network of construction and access roads. Kvinesheia consists of a very hilly mountain terrain with crags and deep cuts. You are therefore left with a permanently destroyed landscape, and for what? 25-year licence, use and disposal.
The southern parts of the country from Rogaland and down the entire Sørlad coast are densely developed with buildings, roads, power regulation and other interventions, and large untouched natural areas (INON) practically do not exist. Only a few scattered areas remain and the Kvinesheia wind farm is located in the middle of such an INON area, and both visibility and reflex flashing will simultaneously reduce the value of several such surrounding INON areas. It is sad that the last untouched natural areas are being removed from the landscape at a record-breaking scale and pace that recent wind power development represents.
Norway has plenty of clean energy, and is an annual net exporter of such power to Europe. We don't need more such destructive developments. Vest-Agder is one of the counties that has already sacrificed a lot for the clean power supply through extensive hydropower development. It would be unreasonable for those who have sacrificed so much to now face further destruction and loss in the last untouched natural areas in the form of wind power development.
Neither in the original license processing nor in the subsequent appeal processing were any of the natural values emphasized by NVE/OED. They were only briefly described, and then blithely dismissed.
Allemannsretten is enshrined in the legislation because all residents of this country must have access to use our common natural areas, regardless of who owns the land. Now this right is being taken away from all of us with a single stroke of a pen in an office in Oslo, and our run-of-the-mill natural areas are being turned into permanently destroyed industrial areas.
The Norwegian Environmental Protection Association has been working against the ravages of wind power in the landscape for almost 15 years. We don't need this energy. People in this country instead need nature and the landscape in their immediate environment, much more than industrial plants on every other knoll and mountain peak. We submitted the complaint about Statkraft's license change to NVE on 1/3/2019.
Read the consultation statement in PDF.
Support us in the fight for our last remaining natural landscapes before it's too late.
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