Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
PART II
1975-1980: The Years of Breakthrough for Danish
Wind Power
With the asynchronous generator rediscovered, this chapter will
present various sides of the origin of the contemporary wind
turbine design and who made the crucial conceptual and tech-
nological contributions. It is important to acknowledge the work
of Johannes Juul and Christian Riisager, who in 1976 was the first
to commercialise a wind turbine using Juul's design principles.
It was not the hybrid blade technology of Juul and Riisager,
however, that lead the way to the development of the contemporary
wind turbine in Denmark, but the 2 MW Tvind windmill, designed
and built by a group of amateurs from the Tvind School.
In 1976, Tvind transferred Professor Ulrich Hütter's advanced
blade technology from the DLR at the Technical University of
Stuttgart to Denmark and made it available for the general public.
Erik Grove-Nielsen's newly founded Økær Vind Energi brought
to the market Tvind's downscaled 4.5 m blade, the basis of the
emerging component wind turbine. Soon after that, NIVE defines
the specifications for various wind turbine components (blades,
controls) that enable small enterprises to manufacture 22 kW
wind turbines.
This chapter describes how the combination of Juul's principles
(heavy, upwind, 3 blades, asynchronous generator, stall regulation)
with Ulrich Hütter's/Tvind's advanced blade design resulted in
the winning wind turbine concept, called the Danish Concept.
This process takes place 1975-1979 when the later successful
manufacturers Vestas, Nordtank, Bonus, etc., commercialise the
concept, which they, step-by-step, scaled-up and took to the world
market that they dominated for the next 15 years. When other
countries like Germany, Spain and later China, got into commercial
wind turbine manufacturing, their designs were Juul-Hütter
hybrids, that became industrial standard. Some manufacturers
changed to synchronous generator, however, within the same basic
concept.
This chapter highlights pioneering achievements in the
development of the modern wind turbine and presents successful
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