Government subsidy cuts looming

Norway's small wind power establishment is beginning to stir in reaction to the pain of imminent cuts in government subsidies. The risk is of "wind power enterprise in Norway dying out before properly getting started," Iver Nordseth, head of pressure group LNVK, told national news agency NTB. Nordseth says he is demanding "acceptable and predictable framework conditions" for the industry from government. Wind power is facing a reduction in capital investment subsidies of more than half, from 25% to 10%. The government is expected to ignore this and other appeals, if only out of reluctance to interfere with the opaque deliberations of Enova, the new energy agency which appears to have introduced the cuts virtually by stealth during the past year.