Traditional light bulbs are quickly becoming a thing of the past as low-energy and LED lights take their place. Photo: Volkmar Schulz/Scanpix

The Swedish government, which has set the goal of 10TWh (terawatt hours) wind power generation capacity by 2015, is not alone in their search for clean energy. More and more individuals are taking things into their own hands. On the gable end of Pär Nord’s quintessentially Swedish Falu-red house near the High Coast in northern Sweden, the blades of a small wind turbine are spinning in the fresh breeze. They make a sound which Pär compares with obvious fondness to the swishing noise small waves make when they break on a pebbly beach.

“It’s a liberating feeling,” says Pär, who has long been interested in environment and climate issues. He heats his house with wood from his own land and is planning to install solar panels next year.


Small turbines can be fitted onto the roof of a house and help keep the household energy clean. Photo: Pär Nord 

Fredrik Ivarsson is the proud owner of a considerably larger 10kW wind turbine which sits on top of a tall mast 30 meters (100 feet) from his house in the south of Sweden. “I didn’t do it to make money, but if I can get my money back that would be great,” he says. “It’s a step in a more environmentally-friendly direction. I think that the less you pollute the world the better — but I’m absolutely not an activist.”

CO2-free

Pär and Fredrick are among a growing number of Swedes who now generate electricity with their own wind turbines. While there are no statistics for the number of privately-owned wind turbines in Sweden, the number of companies selling them has risen in the last ten years from three to nearly 30. There are no government subsidies available for those installing their own wind turbines — unlike for solar panels — but permits are not needed for turbines with blades less than 10 feet in diameter.

There is a certain irony in Swedes investing in their own wind turbines. After all, unlike most industrialized countries, only a miniscule fraction of Sweden’s electricity comes from CO2-producing fossil fuels. Nuclear and hydropower account for about 90 percent and renewable bio-energy for ten.

Making a statement

So why do individuals in Sweden do it? At the Department of Technology and Social Change at the University of Linköping, Associate Professor Jenny Palm is leading research into the subject. She has found that for many Swedes, investing in small-scale wind turbines or solar panels is about making a statement.

Solar panels are most effective in Sweden during the summer months when the midnight sun only sets for a few hours, if at all. Photo: Guterstam

“This is a symbolic issue,” Palm says. “By investing in wind turbines or solar panels people can show the world that they are environmentally friendly. But also many of them are annoyed with the large energy companies who they think are robbing people with their high prices. So it is an environmental but also an ideological issue.”

Many Swedes, while not investing in their own solar panels or wind turbines, choose energy companies with consideration to their energy policy. Some only provide clean energy and others give customers the option of only buying solar, wind and hydroelectric power.

Symbolic issue

Since Pär Nord installed his wind turbine it has generated a grand total of 168.7 kW hours of electricity — about enough to power the electric fence around the cattle field that he rents out to a local farmer. “It’s never going to pay for itself,” he says, admitting that the wind on his land is just not strong enough.

Asked if he regrets his SEK 55,000 (EUR 5,300) investment, considering that it will never pay for itself, he replies with a question of his own: “How long will it take before your sofa has paid for itself? Or a beautiful painting? You don’t buy things for them to pay for themselves.”

Pär describes generating his own electricity — no matter how little — as an enormously important symbolic issue. “Today it is actually possible to make your own electricity. If a lot of people start generating their own electricity, it will have a real impact. It’s about not being dependent on big electricity companies.”

Others feel the economic aspect is more relevant — and one option is to try to invest in larger wind turbines through a collective investment between neighbors. Hopes are to be able to sell some excess electricity back to the power grid, though extremely few private investors manage to reach this level of production.

Talking point

Both Pär and Fredrik report that their wind turbines have triggered discussions and good-humored debates about energy and climate issues with neighbors and passers-by. 

“They may not rush out and buy their own, but they think it’s good that someone is leading the way,” says Fredrik. They haven’t had complaints about noise made by the rotating blades, although neither has close neighbors. Fredrick says that his is almost totally silent anyway.

According to Pär, generating your own electricity makes you more aware of your own energy use — and more likely to use less of it. “I see this as some sort of life-change that we have to do to save the planet,” he says.

The move towards self sufficiency in energy clearly gives him deep personal satisfaction. “When the wind is blowing enough and the wind turbine is producing electricity, a little green light comes on.  I go and look at it and it makes me happy.”

David Wiles

David Wiles is a British freelance journalist living and working in Sweden. He is currently building a house on a windswept plot of land in the south of the country, and would like to install a wind turbine there. However his main concern at the moment is making sure that his new carport does not get blown away.