Environmental protection policy and the energy sector of Denmark: Is Denmark becoming energy independent?

Energy sector or energy policy of a country are closely interwoven with environmental policy, but also with its national security. Denmark is, along with Germany, a European forerunner with respect to the use of renewable energy sources for the production of electricity, which can be owed to the commitment of succesive Danish governments to environmental policy, but also to their efforts to increase the energy security of energy supply. The focus of this paper is not so much on the security aspects of the switching over to renewable energy sources as main energy sources, but on environmental policy which presupposes an increasing share of „green“ energy sector in the production and final consumption of energy. First of all, the author examines the interlacement of environmental policy and the energy sector, then looks at the energy policy of Denmark which has been increasingly based on the use of renewable energy sources for the production of electricity, transport and heating, and eventually concludes that Denmark is a European pioneer in the effort to realise a full energy independence or self-sufficiency