The wind power company OX2 builds on both sides of the Baltic Sea, but it is much easier to get permission in Finland than in Sweden. Finnish municipalities do not have the same opportunity to place a municipal veto and receive financial compensation.
Peter Tornberg is business manager at OX2:
– In the Finnish process, they have succeeded in getting the municipalities to want expanded wind power. It has to do with the fact that property tax in Finland goes to the municipality. The property tax does not go to the state as in Sweden.
44 wind turbines – 50 on the way
The share of electricity that comes from wind power is steadily increasing in Finland. Today, production covers approximately ten percent of the country’s electricity needs, but according to the Finnish Wind Power Association, the share will double within just a few years.
The municipality of Närpes is a telling example of the wind power boom. Today there are 44 wind turbines here and more than 50 are under construction, and even more wind turbines are in the planning stage.
Närpes is currently building both a school and a health care centre. These are financed, among other things, by the property tax from the wind turbines.
“Money is not everything”
But not everyone is positive about the expansion. Lars Forsén has received 18 wind turbines near the house. The nearest one is a kilometer from the site. The wind turbines disturb his night’s sleep.
– I can’t sleep with the window open, he says.
But above all, he is upset about how the expansion of the wind power companies has affected nature. With blasted mountains and clear-cutting as a result.
– I want nature to be free. What if someone came to their house and mash with some goddamn machine… What a way.
But isn’t it good that the municipality receives property tax for the wind turbines?
– Yes, it is very good, but money is not everything. I want my children and grandchildren to experience a free nature, as I have had to do. I think we are being limited by this.