Environmentalists face dilemma over wind energy

Wind turbines are proving to be popular with Swiss investors as a lucrative source of renewable energy but environmentalists and community groups are becoming alarmed at their proliferation.

Green groups have long championed such forms of alternative energy, but with an increasing number of projects on the drawing board they are calling for more stringent rules to preserve landscapes.

Community groups, meanwhile, are increasingly worried about the visual impact the giant wind mills have on residential areas.

The latest generation of turbines in Switzerland are 100 metres high, and others planned are even higher, hard to ignore in regions where they are installed.

And it is not just the size of the towers that is off-putting.  

Residents in the Jura village of Saint-Brais are complaining about the noise the giant rotors make.

A pair of wind turbines looms over the rural village of 220 residents.

The towers are located 300 metres away from the nearest dwellings, conforming to legal regulations.

But since they were installed in November 2009 residents say the whirring sound of the rotors is difficult to bear.

“When the wind from the west arrives we hear their noise,” resident Pascale Hoffmeyer told the Tribune de Genève newspaper.

“It is insidious, unbearable – they wake us up in the middle of the night.”

The noise emitted by the turbines in fact conforms with regulations that authorize levels up to 50 decibels.

But even industry officials acknowledge the 300-metre distance from homes needs to be revisited.

A minimum of 1,500 metres is necessary for the latest generation of wind farms, according to Pro-Crêtes, a community association in Neuchâtel, which is also calling for tougher regulations.

The issue has put environmentalists in a quandary as an increasing number of Swiss utilities plan to install more wind farms, aided by subsidies to encourage “clean” energy.

SIG, Geneva’s utiliity, for example, wants to build six more turbines near Saint-Brais.

Normally supportive of renewable energy over such sources as fossil fuels or nuclear plants, green groups are now calling for stricter guidelines.

“We are not against wind turbines but we don’t believe they should be allowed just anywhere,” Francoise Mundler, secretary of the Pro Natura Vaud group, told Swisster.

The latest issue of the group’s magazine describes wind farms as a “threat without precedent” for Vaud’s countryside because of inadequate regulations.

“We have asked for the canton of Vaud to state clearly the places where you can or cannot install wind turbines,” Mundler said.

But the government has not yet developed such a list.

At least 30 wind farm projects have been proposed for Vaud and 300 across Switzerland, although it is not clear whether all of them will come to fruition.

Compared to other European nations such as Denmark, Switzerland has been slow to jump on the wind turbine bandwagon.

The mountain country benefits less than others from strong winds that blow on a regular basis and the number of potential locations for generators is relatively limited.

The first Swiss wind energy facility was put into operation near Soolhof (Längenbrück) in 1986 with a capacity of 28 kilowatts.

By 2007 there were 30 wind plants in operation.

But it is only recently that projects have begun to multiply.

And for the moment wind generators are producing just a tiny fraction of the country’s energy requirements.

By 2030 the federal government says such towers could provide around 600 gigawatts of energy per year.

The government has generally identified the Jura, parts of the Alps and the western “Mitelland” plateau.

However, that remains relatively little given the country’s electricity demands of around 60,000 gigawatts a year.

And producers have expressed frustration over the slow process of cantonal approval for wind turbines.

In March, the federal government announced a national plan intended to unify the approval process in the 26 cantons and to streamline the application process.

The government said that the approval process for 100 turbines was at an advanced stage.

However, industry officials say wind energy will not replace the need for nuclear power, which -after hydroelectric plants - remains the second biggest contributor to Switzerland’s power grid.