One indication that Danes are serious about tackling climate change involves the country’s electricity providers. The Politiken newspaper reports that a rising number of Danish consumers are changing electricity companies to those that specialise in sustainable energy production.
A number of Denmark’s small independent electricity producers who are green have seen an impressive jump in new customers over the past months. Less than two percent of Danes switch electric companies each quarter, a figure much lower than its Nordic neighbours.
However, the important fact is that many of the Danes who are changing are making the move to green companies despite the often higher cost of their power, JP news service notes.
Natur-Energi is one such firm that produces all its electricity from sustainable energy sources. Its customer base has grown by 100 percent since January, doubling itself each month. If this rate continues, Natur-Energi will have around 50,000 consumers by the end of 2009.
“We get all kinds of customers – everyone from nurses to heads of advertising agencies. And the one thing they have in common is that they want to take responsibility for their electricity usage,” Rasmus Christensen, Natur-Energi’s chief executive commented.
However, even though conscientious energy consumption is on the rise in Denmark, the country is not the European leader. The Netherlands, for example, has some 1.5 million consumers using green electricity.
>”How can they choose a provider of electricity? ”
I’m not quite sure it’s the same technology in Denmark but it is called smart grids. If the consumers are equiped with the so called smart meters, they can “negotiate” with the grid the provider to use.
I think Iceland has a strong future in renewable green energy and especially in recycling. Icelanders have lots of space, and now also – lots of time with nothing to do.
Iceland could be a center for old auto tire recycling. You can cut them up into little pieces in new plants, which like aluminum are energy-intensive, or cook them up into syrup to put on roads, like Nutella, except black and smelly. Probably it would be more efficient to simply dig big holes in the middle of the country and put the tires there. Or leave them uncovered – who is going to notice? Icelanders have a large shipping industry with deceased business now. All these ships could be converted to tankers and you could fill them up with sewage from all over Europe and bring to Iceland for processing. Or you could not process them at all and find a place within the 200 mile zone where nobody will notice if you dump a few things. Many other industrial wastes could be brought to Iceland and be processed or dumped, since Europe has too many people and too little space. Also, Iceland is a free-market state with few laws. Nuclear waaste, however, would not be a good idea since the whole country could erupt in the next 10000 years and blow radioactivity into the atmosphere.
Iceland could compete with China in recycling consumer products. The government could buy all the unemployed Icelands little hammers and give them some old televisions and videoplayers and computers to break into little pieces. Iceland has free energy and since it is a laissez-faire free-market economy, nobody would care if you put some old circuit boards in boiling pots of acid to get the valuable silver and gold off. All those former bankers would be particularly good at working with gold and silver.
Niels – You pay a high price so we – Norway – can buy cheap from you :-) I think it is common to divide payment in energy and grid.
http://www.tennet.org/english/projects/norned_/index.aspx
There is a also one energy marked in the Nordic countries. Perhaps that is the same in the rest of Europe.
Iceland has the world’s biggest source of green electricity by using earth-warmth.
Water power and “biogas” are other important sources of “green” electricity. Biogas is obtained by leaving (organic) waste to rot.
It sounds weird but apparently this can be done on a large scale.
This method is used very much overhere. An other important source is burning of waste and turning the heat into energy.
Off course it is very debatable how ‘green’ this is as there are all kinds of nasty emissions. Moreover it is not sustainable, but anyhow, it is sold as green energy overhere.
There is solar energy too. But this does not play a big part here (obviously). Still there are lots of houses here with solar pannels which apparently produce enough electricity for most of the household appliances.
Companies dealing in ‘green’ energy either have their own power plants, using these technologies, or they buy electricity from these plants and sell it to customers, using the general power grid, connecting houses.
In fact, on my energy bill, I have to pay for both the energy and the use of the grid!
It is not cheap at all.
True, you aren’t using anything different but the money goes to your provider of choice and that provider must put that much power on the grid. The provider can then expand production which either drives the status quo to new marketing strategies or to do more green themselves. So it is a good thing overall if the game is played fairly. Of course things rarely work out as the marketing claims.
Not sure about what green tech is used but more wind farms = more green energy. A little of this and a little of that is how it should work. Use as much green energy from multiple sources as you can and all the counter claims from the old school start to fade away.
I didn’t get it.
How can they choose a provider of electricity? I assume there is a single grid line to every household. Unless “providers” just “pump” electricity to the common electricity distribution network and each customer pays just pays accordingly.
And what kind of “sustainable” source are they talking about? Except wind turbines (seeing them makes me dizzy) I don’t remember anything.