History of Danish Wind Power - Wind Power for the World: The Rise of Modern Wind Energy - page 78

plans for renewable energy supported by adding tax credits for
investors to an existing more moderate federal tax credit. It created
a flourishing market for wind turbines, and the Danish products
soon got a good reputation for reliability compared with most of
their American and European competitors.
In 1982, the first 35 Danish wind turbines were in operation
in California. The 55 kW turbines, established as the “standard
product” from most producers, were upgraded to 65 kW for the US
market due to the 60 Hz grid-frequency. There was rapid growth in
the export, and in the year 1985, the sale culminated with nearly
3 500 units. It was 90% of the total Danish production this year
[20]. Many Danish wind turbine producers took part in the export.
Vestas, Nordtank and Bonus were of course there, along with
Micon, which was started in 1983 as a breakaway from Nordtank.
These four factories covered in this period around 70% of the
Danish home market and played an important role in California.
But also Christian Riisager, who now had moved his wind turbine
production to the Faroe Islands, and many new manufacturers,
including producers of the “blacksmith wind turbine” all got a share
of the US market.
Much has been written, both in scientific and more popular
literature, about the Danish role in the “Californian adventure”,
and many analyses have been done to explain the Danish success
at the international wind turbine market [21, 22]. A common
explanation has been the diference between the “development
strategy” in Denmark and in other countries. In the United States and
Germany a “top down” approach was chosen, including big high-
tech industries and building large experimental turbines, based
on advanced aerospace technology. In Denmark a “bottom-up”
development was followed, starting with small wind turbines and
low technology solutions, gradually up-scaling along with learning
from practical experience. This may be part of the explanation. The
Danish bottom-up development was not a “strategy” chosen by the
government. It was the result of a close and open cooperation and
exchange of ideas between the actors—inventors, researchers and
innovative industries—in the first creative development phase.
The “flying start” at the Californian market had in several ways
deep consequences for the further Danish wind power development.
On the one hand, the new industry got a lot of technological