No compensation for wind power affected homeowners

Homeowners affected by declining property values due to ongoing wind power exploitation can in most cases not expect to be compensated for it. This is the message from Oscar Wiktorsson, a communicator at the wind power company Eolus.

On Monday, Samnytt wrote about Sven and Görel Willén outside Smedjebacken in Dalarna, whose house has halved in value. The reason is the plans for a new wind power park at Styggtjärnberget just a kilometer from their home.

No decision has yet been made, but the mere threat of a wind power park makes the bank cautious.

Twelve wind turbines

Oscar Wiktorsson is a communicator at Eolus, the company planning the new wind power park. He tells Samnytt that during the consultation held a couple of years ago, there were public comments that prompted the company to make changes to its plans.

“We have since taken this into account in our work with environmental assessments and other aspects, to see what is possible. And then we have concluded that twelve wind turbines will be what we proceed with in the application that we plan to submit here shortly,” he says.

This is a reduction of the number of turbines by a third. Initially, Eolus planned to build eighteen wind turbines at Styggtjärnberget.

Wiktorsson also reveals that Eolus will soon submit the application for the new wind power park to the County Administrative Board. He believes it will be submitted within one or a couple of months.

Compensation for some

In April 2023, the government presented the investigation “The value of the wind”. According to this, those living near wind turbines should receive compensation by sharing in the profits from the turbines.

Currently, there is no such right to compensation, even though some wind power companies have decided to pay compensation to affected property owners on their own initiative. However, compensation is only paid to those living within a distance of up to ten times the height of the wind turbine.

This means that if a wind turbine is 200 meters high, only those living within two kilometers from it are entitled to compensation. Other nearby residents are not entitled to compensation, either according to the government’s investigation proposal or the voluntary compensation offered by some companies.

“Not as individual property owners. Then you are not considered to be particularly affected,” says Oscar Wiktorsson.

Most will be left without

The only study conducted in Sweden on how property values are affected by wind power establishments shows that property owners up to eight kilometers from a turbine suffer a negative impact on property value. According to international studies, there is an impact at even greater distances, for larger turbines.

But at Eolus, there has been no discussion of fully compensating property owners affected by the company’s wind power construction. Instead, they argue that the compensation proposed by the government is sufficient.

“The legislator believes that this compensation would compensate for it. When considering this study and other parameters, this is the conclusion we have reached,” says Wiktorsson.

But does this only apply to the most affected? If a property owner living five kilometers away experiences negative value development, that property owner will not receive any form of compensation?

“No, but the question is how to assess each individual property. Determine what someone would be willing to pay for it when it is put up for sale. Then the banks make their own assessments and so on.”

No national truth

Oscar Wiktorsson reveals that his in-laws have several wind turbines not far from their summer cottage. And he emphasizes that not everyone has a problem living near wind turbines.

“How one perceives wind power is of course subjective. Whether one finds it ugly, disturbing, and so on. There is no national truth about how people perceive it,” says Oscar Wiktorsson.