Briefing 1

Denmark - Birthplace of Modern Wind Power

Oil crisis
Battle of the blades
The California "wind rush"
Time line of Danish wind power

Modern wind power was born in Denmark. In 1891, an adventurous teacher called Poul la Cour discovered that the traditional clapboard-sailed windmill could be adapted from grinding corn to producing electricity. For many years he provided the lighting for his high school and village houses.

During both world wars, dozens of crude wind turbines based on la Cour's design were used to keep power flowing to rural areas hit by fuel blockades. But when oil and coal began to flow again, interest flagged.

In the 1950s a windmill with three narrow blades set on top of a tall tower was built at Gedser, ninety miles south of Copenhagen. This had all the hallmarks of successful later designs. Over nine years it generated more than two million units of power, but was seen as just too expensive compared with power stations using imported oil and coal. Nobody thought much then about the environment.

Oil crisis

It took the Middle East oil crisis of the 1970s to show that wind turbines had a potential far beyond self-sufficiency. Rising prices and uncertain supplies exposed the vulnerability of fossil fuels. At the same time, even before Chernobyl, the great white hope of nuclear energy was beginning to show its cracks.

Wind power offered an alternative which would never run out, was available locally and didn't produce the pollution which inevitably flowed from existing sources - everything from poisoned forests to tar-wrecked coastlines to the hazards of radioactive waste.

Battle of the blades

Two approaches quickly emerged towards this rekindled interest. One was based on the experience of aircraft designers. In both the United States and Europe, large aerospace companies like Boeing, General Electric and MAN sought to tailor the wind turbine to their aerodynamic expertise. Often funded by major government R&D programmes, their philosophy was "biggest is best".
In Denmark, the attitude was very different. The initiative came from environmental activists and entrepreneurs and the industry was based on farm equipment manufacturers. Rather than going in hard from above, they looked to build steadily on the experience of existing wind turbines like the one at Gedser. The emphasis was on low cost, simplicity, reliability and the use of readily available materials.

In the end the aerospace industry failed. None of the giant turbines planned on their drawing boards found their way into commercial production. Whilst the United States had funded research to the tune of nearly half a billion dollars, the Danish government had spent a tenth of that. And whilst wind power in the US hit the doldrums, the Danes, with their "bottom-up" approach and close contact with the farmers who actually used the machines, started an industry which has gone from strength to strength.

The California "wind rush"

Although a domestic market had already developed in Denmark by the 1980s, encouraged by government incentives, it took the California "wind rush" to give Danish wind turbines their head. Fuelled by tax credits to encourage alternative energy, thousands of wind turbines went up around the windswept passes above Los Angeles. Over 7,000 of them were Danish.

But though the technology had proved itself, with a halving of electricity costs, California was hardly an unmitigated success. A sudden end to funding left dozens of failed projects, whilst the serried ranks of turbines marching across barren rocky hillsides were hardly the best advertisement for careful landscaping.

Valuable lessons learned, the Danes returned to Europe, refining the design again into a sleek, aerodynamic structure, its tall tapering tower topped by large fibreglass blades whose regular thrusting rotation is directly converted into kilowatt hours of power. In the process they started a momentum which has spread around the world with remarkable rapidity.

Illustration to be used: original La Cour windmill from DWTM website

Time line of Danish wind power