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Magnificent views over the lake and the mountains inhabited by bear and moose.

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A panorama typical of Jämtland County, a large and extremely sparsely populated area in the centre of Sweden.

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For centuries this far away and mysterious region has fascinated scientists and local people alike.

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The Great Lakes, Dorset, is seemingly calm and peaceful,

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but according to hundreds of eyewitnesses a huge snake-like monster lives in its blue and black depths.

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Of course there's never been any hard evidence to prove the existence of this local Loch Ness monster,

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but the region is remarkable for other reasons, notably for its impressive use of renewable energies.

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We're in Östersund, Jämtland's only city located on the shores of the lake.

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Since the period of the Vikings, Östersund has remained the only urban centre and hub of social life in this huge rural area.

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Despite ice-cold winds, most of the city's households and buildings are warm, thanks to the local district heating system.

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90% of the city's heat and some 30% of its energy use is produced here,

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in Östersund's combined heat and power plant, exclusively fuelled by biomass.

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The mountains of wood residues accumulated during the short northern summer are used to fuel the plant during the long and cold winters.

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To generate heat and power, the plant's steam boilers burn all kinds of wooden material.

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Wood chips, bark or sawdust from the local forestry industry, or even doors and shutters from demolition works.

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Today, the total use of heat and power derived from renewable sources amounts to more than 60%.

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But the county's aim is far more ambitious, to reach 100% use of renewable energy by 2015.

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This target is possible thanks to the densely wooded landscape, which covers 99% of the county's territory.

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Wood and forests are an extraordinary source of biomass.

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This organic biofuel has huge potential, and its use is strongly encouraged by the European Commission.

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I expect that the use of biomass in producing heating and cooling, producing power, is still immense,

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because it really grows in Europe. It's our internal resource, so we are not dependent on this resource from somebody else.

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At the same time, it's economically and financially viable, and it can be used already by existing technologies.

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Of course, the aim is to persuade the consumers to convert from fossil fuels to biomass technologies.

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We have done very many information activities for both common people, with information in the evenings,

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in different places in the county, speaking about how to use biofuels, how big the investments are,

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how you install them and so on, also with district heating and heat pumps.

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Jimmy Annual of the county's energy agency promotes biofuels in Jämtland's eight municipalities.

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Apart from alternative heating solutions, his aim is also to encourage the use of alternative cars,

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running on clean and cheaper bioethanol.

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If we talk about household heating, we know that in three or four years we'll be using zero fossil fuels for heating.

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But if we talk about cars, it'll take longer.

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The goal is to use bioenergy for cars, but that will still take some time.

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Karl-Erik Strindlund has always been open to sustainable energy solutions.

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In 2003, he converted his heating from electricity to biomass.

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Hot water pipes buried in his garden supply heat, produced in the Östersund plant, directly to his house.

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Well, here is the whole installation for the district heating.

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I mean, with the heat exchanger, the heat pump, the heating system,

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I mean, with the heat exchanging units, and here is a small computer.

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Even though winter temperatures in Jämtland can easily reach minus 30 to 40 degrees Celsius,

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the Strindlund family is not afraid of high winter heating costs.

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The new installation helped them lower their energy bills,

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and have safe, comfortable and environmentally friendly heating.

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A decision which they considered carefully.

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It is so that in some years, in 10, 20, 30 years, there will be lack of oil,

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and we have the global warming problem,

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and at the same time, here in our county, we are living in the middle of forests.

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We have lots of biofuel growing around us.

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So we have to use these local resources.

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While such large-scale heating distribution is available only for Östersund and its surroundings,

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similar small-scale solutions have been applied in villages across Jämtland.

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This is the case for the village of Brunflö,

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which recently converted from oil-generated heating to wooden pellets,

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and now supplies heat and hot water to some 700 households.

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Produced by local timber companies,

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the pellets are becoming an increasingly popular clean heating solution in Jämtland county,

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as well as in the whole of Sweden.

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Burning pellets releases as much carbon dioxide

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as if the wood had been left to break down naturally in the forest.

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The pellets are produced from discarded wood chips and sawdust

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that would otherwise be thrown out,

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so no additional trees were cut down to produce them.

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The new pellet boiler now heats the house of Katrin Johansson.

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Dried and compressed,

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wood pellets are significantly more efficient at producing heat than plain wood.

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In the summer, Katrin fills up her boiler once a week,

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and once a day in winter.

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Before we had a heating system,

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we used to heat the wood pellets in the summer.

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Before we had a heating system that used wood.

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It was tiresome to go down all the time to put the wood in the boiler,

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and that's why we changed to pellets,

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so we don't have to put things into it so often.

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Despite the quite large investment for a pellet boiler,

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Katrin feels it's well worth it,

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since it's much more comfortable and it pays off in the long run.

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Her environmentally friendly boiler provides hot water

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and keeps the whole house warm,

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all with the pleasant smell of burning wood.

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With its 100% renewable energy supply project,

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Yampland County has recently become one of the first partners

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in the EU's new four-year campaign, Sustainable Energy Europe.

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The main motivation was to share its biomass experience

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and to see how the sustainable energy is used

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in other European regions and communities.

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Most of all, we want to show other regions in Europe

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how we use biofuels, both for heating directly in houses

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and district heating and for power production.

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And of course, we also want to get experiences from other energy agencies,

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how they work concerning, for example, solar energy and so on.

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Disseminating best practices and exchanging experiences

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on new markets, technologies and employment opportunities,

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that's the role of the partners involved in this EU campaign,

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promoting sustainable energies.

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In a lot of European communities,

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there have been fantastic projects going on.

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A lot of companies are doing an excellent job.

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So we need partners to bring this knowledge to other Europeans,

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because only in this way we can be really strong,

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we can be environmentally friendly

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and Europe will continue to be a prosperous region.

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Jämflens County's sustainable energy capital

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is mainly based on the biomass growing all around.

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But all European regions have in fact potential

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to develop a wide range of clean energy solutions.

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Many of them are already striving to adopt

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a sustainable energy pattern of development,

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so contributing to a cleaner and more prosperous world.