Europe is in a deep energy crisis, and the violent energy price increases are changing all economic equations for both citizens and companies. But what should be done?

A new government must immediately after the general election on 1 November present a new national energy plan that can get us safely through the crisis. Feel free to create an operational staff that can move quickly across all ministries and agencies, as during the corona pandemic.
We are facing a difficult winter, where there may be a lack of electricity in the grid, where citizens may freeze in their homes and several companies go bankrupt. Until now, politicians have not provided a well-thought-out response to the challenge. In Europe, governments have spent over 500 billion euros to patch the biggest problems and intervene in the market. But politicians can no longer be satisfied with emergency solutions.

Only through massive energy savings and a much larger upgrade with solar cells and wind energy can we free ourselves quickly from the iron grip that dependence on fossil fuels has become.

Denmark is – like the other EU countries – still deeply dependent on the import of fossil fuels. Although a larger share of our electricity supply comes from renewable energy sources, oil, gas and coal account for almost 55 percent of our total energy consumption. And solar and wind energy still supply only about 10 percent, which is far, far too little.

Many years of nation-branding of Denmark as a green front runner nation has led us to believe that we are almost world champions, but two-thirds of the renewable energy comes from biomass, the majority of which is imported wood from Eastern Europe. We move like sleepwalkers into the future, but we are still deeply chained to climate-damaging fossils and biomass that increase particle pollution.

Climate and Energy Minister Dan Jørgensen (S) tweets with nice graphs about the "massive expansion" of renewable energy until 2030, because a broad agreement has been made to quadruple green power in this decade. But we are far from the finish line. Until 2030, many Power-to-X plants will be erected, which will swallow almost all the extra offshore wind that the politicians have dished out. The lack of energy policy realism is widespread.

An example is Danish Industry, which recently launched a plan where they claim that they can deliver "100 percent green energy" in 2030. They can't. It looks more like greenwashing. Danish Industry will only secure 107 TWh of energy in 2030, but this only supplies half of Denmark's total energy consumption. Danish Industry only has a plan for 100 percent green electricity. And that is something else.

As a society, we are faced with a very difficult transformation. We cannot afford to fail, because the climate bills in the future will cost us dearly. Within a few years, we must fundamentally change the way we produce and consume if we are to solve the climate crisis and free ourselves from the fossil shackles of authoritarian regimes. This requires an extremely rapid scale-up of renewable energy in the next few years in our electricity and heat supply. And at the same time we must save much more on energy.

The good news is that we've done it before. We can draw inspiration from the energy crisis of the 1970s, when forward-looking politicians bet on energy savings and invested in the Danish wind turbine adventure. But for far too many years we have been lying in the hammock. Since 2015, virtually no new wind turbines have been erected, we are hopelessly behind Germany in terms of solar cells, we have sharply cut green taxes, and our gross energy consumption is as large as eight years ago.

In addition, we belong to the bottom of the fourth division in the EU in terms of circular economy, and in terms of resources, Denmark uses the equivalent of 4,2 earth globes.

The next government should raise the green taxes, which today only amount to 2,8 percent of GDP, and then more funds can be obtained to invest in green transition. Fifteen years ago, the state collected more than 15 percent of GDP by imposing taxes on pollution, energy, transport, resource consumption and hydrocarbons. It provided stronger economic incentives to change.

Second, impose tough energy-saving requirements. Introduce a national target to improve energy efficiency by 23-25 ​​percent by 2030, so that we are ahead in the EU. Please also immediately reduce the speed on the motorways by 10-20 km/h and reduce the speed in the cities to 40 km/h, because this can quickly save on the import of fuel. Feel free to ban the sale of new fossil-fuel cars from 2025 and set up many more charging points so that mobility can be electrified.

Energy renovations should also be given high priority. Set a concrete goal to raise all public buildings one or two energy classes and increase support for energy renovations for private home owners. Introduce a new ambitious green subsidy scheme for energy renovations in 2022-2025 with DKK 3-5 billion. Grants may be triggered automatically when a gas or oil boiler is scrapped. Expand the district heating pool so that more people can get district heating quickly. By 2027 at the latest, all gas and oil boilers should be scrapped, and all fossil fuels must be out of the heat supply by 2030 at the latest.

Last but not least: More wind turbines and solar cells on land is the cheapest and fastest way to free oneself from Putin's energy. They should become two supporting pillars in Denmark's overall energy supply, supplemented by geothermal heating, Power-to-X and a little biogas.

Before 2025, at least 20 GW of solar cells should be installed on low-lying land, industrial roofs, by motorways and above car parks. The target can be raised to 30 GW towards 2030, as it does not take more than 1-2 years to set up new solar systems.

We will also need a lot of wind on land and at sea to become 100 percent self-sufficient with clean renewable energy. Today, there is 4,7 GW of wind on land, but towards 2030 it must be scaled up to at least 20 GW of wind on land and in coastal areas. Make it attractive for citizens, farmers, companies and municipalities to sell energy to the grid via plus energy houses and the sale of excess energy from renewable energy plants on roofs and fields.

Perhaps it can fertilize the ground for a new people's movement. Let's mobilize all good forces so that Denmark can become completely free of fossil fuels. At the same time, politicians should open up far more offshore wind for the export of electricity and hydrogen to the European market. Instead of a half-hearted goal of 12-13 GW, you should at least reach 30 GW in 2030, and you can double again towards 2035. Just get started.

The comment was also brought to the Alting on 24 October 2022