Environmental Engineering Reference
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southern Denmark, had made a mould set as a copy of the
blades for the small 15 kW Tvind turbine. At first I borrowed the
mould from them, but later I purchased it at a price of DKK
2 500 (USD 500). Thus my first blades in 1977 were copies from
these 4.5 m long Tvind blades with German “ancestors”. My first
customers were two members of the Fouslet group: Henry
Jørgensen and Svend Adolphsen. However, these 4.5 m blades
were noisy and had poor aerodynamics.
8.3
Against the Wind
In 1976 Christian Riisager began production of the Riisager
turbine of 22 kW and 45 kW carrying wooden blades. The first
competitor to the Riisager turbine was the Kuriant turbine,
developed as the Adolphsen turbine, for which I delivered the first
fibreglass blades in November 1977. The Adolphsen turbine later,
as the first wind turbine, achieved the type approval numbered
A-1 by the Danish Risø test station. However, after selling the
blades to the Fouslet group I had no new customers. I tried to
improve the situation by travelling around the country in our
Volkswagen bus, with a blade pointing out of the rear hatch, visiting
blacksmith shops, and trying to get some blades sold. I had no
success doing so. But a new initiative saved my business: a group
of individuals led by Preben Maegaard created the NIVE Group in
Thy, on the Danish west coast, and gathered to build five private
turbines for their own households. In January 1978 Preben
Maegaard asked me if I would design and fabricate 5 m long blades
of certain specifications to their common project. These orders
arrived as sent from heaven.
I then began designing my first 5 m blade. Before I made
the mould, I had to decide which way the rotor should turn. The
old Danish tradition prescribed counter clockwise rotation. This
tradition was adopted in 1975 by the wind turbine pioneer,
Christian Riisager, and the same year by the Tvind Community for
their initial 15 kW turbine named PTG. But my wife Tove, being
an individualist, and not at all attracted by the Tvind community,
suggested that our blade design should turn the opposite direction
of the Tvind PTG blades. My younger brother Johannes was part
of the Wind Turbine Crew at Tvind, and I often may have tried to
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