Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Environment since 2004, was appointed Minister of Climate
and Energy. Hedegaard worked hard to re-establish Denmark's
international reputation in the field. One of her achievements in
2008 was a Danish energy policy including two new 200 MW
ofshore wind farms scheduled to start energy production in 2012.
And already in 2009 and 2010, growth in the amount of Denmark's
wind turbines resumed. A new left-wing government after the
election in 2011 is supposed to continue and develop a strategy
with
wind
power
delivering
50%
of
the
Danish
electricity
consumption by 2020.
3.21
Denmark Is Still Ahead: 2012
Thirty-five years after the “re-invention” of wind power, Denmark is
still in a leading position. The size of wind turbines has constantly
grown since then. The first Vestas had the designation “V-10”,
indicating the 10 m rotor diameter. Today, Vestas has already
delivered more than 1 000 of the 3 MW “V-112” and even bigger
turbines are planned. The “Danish concept” has been modified
along the way. Already in 1986 the first designs with pitch-regulated
blades instead of the fixed blades with stall-regulation were
developed—and from the 200 kW “V-25” in 1989, it was the standard
solution for Vestas turbines. Later, it became the new standard
for big wind turbines.
The newest technical trend—especially for ofshore turbines—
is gearless direct drive wind turbines using generators with
permanent magnets (PMGs). This technology has been tried before.
In 1999, the Folkecenter made tests with a 100 kW prototype
PMG, following the trend in other countries, where gearless wind
turbines were already produced. Today's version—a compact
construction, enabled by new advanced materials for permanent
magnets—was introduced on a Siemens 3 MW prototype in 2008.
During the last two decades, the Danish wind turbine factories
have become fewer but bigger. Nordtank merged with Micon in
1997 to NEG-Micon which was finally merged with Vestas in 2002.
And Bonus was sold to Siemens in 2004—and became Siemens
Windpower-but is still based in Denmark.
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