Hundreds March in Skien Against 300-Metre Wind Turbines — Council Could Kill the Plan in November

They came with banners, a protest song and a simple message: no turbines in Luksefjell. On Thursday afternoon, 15 October, several hundred people marched through the centre of Skien in Telemark against plans by the company Skien Vind to build wind turbines up to 300 metres tall on the ridges around Fjellvannet lake.

Skien Vind is backed by Cloudberry Clean Energy, the regional utility Skagerak Kraft and the landowner Løvenskiold-Fossum. NRK has described the project as possibly Norway’s largest wind farm. Hikers and conservationists call the forested hills, Hortafjell and Blåfjell, the “prime cut” of nature in the Grenland region.

“Dette området i Luksefjell er for min del helt uaktuelt. Jeg syns det er drøyt at vi skal legge beslag på den viktigste utmarka vi har.”

“For my part, this area in Luksefjell is completely out of the question. I think it is too much that we should take over the most important open countryside we have.”

— Jørn Inge Næss (Progress Party), deputy mayor of Skien, to NRK

A vote in November

The protest worked, at least for now. Deputy mayor Jørn Inge Næss of the Progress Party had asked for a vote of principle, and Conservative mayor Marius Roheim Aarvold agreed to put one to the next council meeting in November — even though his own party group wanted more studies first. On Thursday evening the council confirmed it.

Skagerak Energy’s chief executive Jens Bjørn Staff has said the municipalities must say yes: “We can’t force a wind farm on anyone who doesn’t want it.” Helene Tveit, who shared footage from the march, summed up the mood: yes to nature, no to wind power.