Sweden has vetoed the construction of 13 offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea, saying they could impede military operations.
The rejected farms together would have had around 30GW of installed capacity, enough to power the entire country.
At a press conference on Monday, Sweden’s defence minister Pål Jonson said their proximity to Russia’s Baltic enclave Kaliningrad was “central to the assessment”, news outlet Syre reports.
“Based on the Armed Forces’ documentation, the government makes the assessment that it would lead to unacceptable consequences for Sweden’s military defence to build the projects in question,” Jonson told reporters.
“In the serious security policy situation Sweden now finds itself in, with war in our immediate area, the defence interest must weigh heavily when assessments like this are made.”
“Both ballistic robots and also cruise robots are a big problem if you have offshore wind power,” Jonson said, reports The Guardian.
Jonson added that “there would be negative consequences if there were offshore wind power in the way of the sensors”.
Sweden’s renewable industry has reacted with dismay to the decision.
Svensk Vindenergi, the lobby group for Swedish Wind Energy, said the decision was “surprising and problematic” and questioned why the government had acted “without a proper assessment”.
Jonson claimed that the wind farms could be built off Sweden’s southwestern and northeastern coasts, which offered better conditions.
He added that Sweden now had a “special responsibility” to make the Baltic easier for Nato to operate in.
A government memo, seen by AFP, noted that other countries had found workarounds for offshore wind power, for example by siting radar transmitters in the parks. It added that Sweden’s energy demand could more than double by 2045.
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