Sweden has rejected 13 applications to build wind farms in the Baltic Sea on defense grounds, while giving the green light to one on its western coast, the government said Monday.
Defense Minister Pal Jonson declared at a press conference that the construction of wind farms in the Baltic would pose risks to defense, among other reasons because it would make it difficult to detect and shoot down missiles with Swedish Patriot batteries in the event of conflict.
Jonson said Baltic wind farms could halve the time Sweden has to react to a missile attack to just one minute. The Swedish capital is just 500 kilometers from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
“In the current very serious international security climate, with Sweden where it is and with Kaliningrad where it is (…) the Swedish armed forces consider that it would entail unacceptable risks and the government also has that opinion,” Jonson told the press.
The decision raises questions about how Sweden will be able to meet its plans to double annual electricity production to around 300 terawatt-hours (TWh) over the next two decades.
Demand is expected to skyrocket as industry and the transportation sector transition away from fossil fuels. Plans for “green” production of steel, batteries and fertilizers in the Arctic north also depend on an abundance of cheap, clean electricity.
The government’s plan is to develop nuclear energy. It aims to have 2,500 more megawatts from this source by 2035 and 10 new reactors a decade later, but critics say demand is expected to rise faster than they can be built.
The government on Monday gave the green light to the Poseidon wind farm, off the west coast, which will produce about 5.5 TWh of electricity a year if built.
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